Best Western Plus Boulder Innhttp://boulderinn.com
The World's Largest Hotel Family®Wed, 07 Dec 2016 23:09:42 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Tesla – Boulder, COhttp://boulderinn.com/tesla-boulder/
Mon, 28 Nov 2016 19:27:04 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2566by Jim Harrington From an early age Elon Musk’s space odyssey made the Tesla Motors impossible electric cars possible. Tesla Motors should not have been born. The last successful American car startup company, Ford, was born over 113 years ago. How could Tesla motors challenge the status quo? Traditional car... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington

From an early age Elon Musk’s space odyssey made the Tesla Motors impossible electric cars possible. Tesla Motors should not have been born. The last successful American car startup company, Ford, was born over 113 years ago. How could Tesla motors challenge the status quo? Traditional car manufacturers could not sell an all-electric vehicle to people outside what they defined as the ‘green ghetto’ of environmentalists and technology enthusiast.

In 2008 the Tesla Roadster was the first fully electric, world class handling, instant torque, incredible power, sports car. It was sold at $109,000 which was about half the price of the cheapest competitive sports car and had no tailpipe emissions nor maintenance costs for the first 100,000 miles. Car and Driver said. “It is not just a car, but one of the strongest automotive statements on the road.” Wow! In four years only about 2,250 cars were sold. Tesla Motors is named after electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla. The Roadster uses an Alternating Current induction motor descended directly from Serbian-American genius Nikola Tesla’s original design done in 1882.

Each new generation of Tesla cars is increasingly affordable helping the company in its mission to help transition the world to sustainable transport. In 2012 Elon’s Tesla Motors ships the Model S Sedan an all-electric silent eye catching premium sedans at a cost about $57,000. In four years well over 100,000 Model S cars have been sold. It goes 300 miles on a single charge with future upgrades increasing its range to 500 miles. The Model S provides the comfort and utility of a family sedan while maintaining the acceleration of a sports car. It accelerates to 60 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds. It seats seven people. It has two trunks with 64 cubic feet of storage. Its silver door handles are flush with the car body until its driver approaches then they pop out to greet the drivers grip and recede back when the driver and car merges within the seat of sedan luxury for a journey upon the open road. The Model S outclassed most other sedans in speed, mileage, handling, storage space and sex appeal. And unlike other luxury sedans it is also fully electric allowing owners to charge at home or at free recharging stations around the world so they never have to visit a gas station nor spend a cent on gasoline. At one time they were going to do battery swapping stations but found that a network of Supercharger Stations that replenished half a charge in 20 minutes worked well for drivers. Then Tesla added Destination Charging Stations at distinctive restaurant and hotels like the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn. If your IPhone could be a car it would be a Tesla. You, your car and your phone can all recharge while you sleep.

Detroit car manufacturers could not innovate a Model S . Tesla Motors tried to open an office in Detroit. The rents were cheap enough but the regulatory bureaucracy for even office space for a car company was too thick requiring amongst other things years of audited financial statements so Tesla opened shop in Fremont California instead.

The world is flat in Detroit with thousands of outsourced car components coming from all corners of the world. It is an amazing operation putting all those pieces together. Tesla Motors choses to be a closed sphere with as many components built in house as possible to allow each part to work and communicate with each other part to make a new integrated ground transportation device. Tesla’s strategy to disrupt the established automotive industry was called ‘complex coordination’. It developed many innovative pieces that fit together extremely well to create a tremendous new advantage over the more established and entrenched car companies. The Roadster was Tesla’s original disruptive technology to the automobile industry as it provided the sexy value of a high end sports car at a lower cost to the customer and a lower resource cost to the planet.

The Tesla Roadster accelerates at least as well as the best sports car but it is six times as efficient in doing so and produces only one tenth the amount of pollution. The Roadster was a vastly superior car in the small size sports car market. It was much more like a Ferrari than a Prius. It showed what the new auto company could do in its first round without trying to force its way too soon into the crowded economy car market share.

Tesla Motors Inc. is a US car and energy storage technology and company that designs, builds and sells electric cars, electric vehicle power train parts and battery products with a focus on energy innovation. Tesla Motors takes the innovation of computers from Silicon Valley and applies it to the car design and manufacturing process to create a unique driving experience that may well change to world. What Apple computers did for cell phones Tesla Motors is doing for cars. It is all possible because of the rechargeable lithium battery for both smartphones and electric cars. Traditional car companies held to the notion that electric cars will never succeed because battery technology had not improved in a hundred years. This was true for traditional lead acid batteries but it is not true of commodity lithium-ion batteries found in millions of consumer devices. Whereas computer power was increasing following Moore’s law of doubling every 18 months lithium ion batteries were following a slow Moore’s law of doubling every 10 years or getting 7% percent better every year. You could bank on today’s lithium ion batteries to get cheaper and better tomorrow.

Increasing gasoline engine performance comes with a big penalty requiring bigger and bigger engines. To accelerate quickly you need a high horse powered engine that will get poor gas mileage when not driving it that quickly. However doubling the horsepower of an electric vehicle from say 100 hp to 200 hp adds only about 25 pounds and it improves the overall efficiency of the car. It is easy to build an electric car that is both highly efficient and also very fast. Traditional cars have thousands of moving parts and are about 10 to 20 percent efficient at turning an input of gasoline into actual vehicle propulsion. Most of the energy, about 70 percent, is lost as heat to the engine, wind resistance, braking, and other mechanical functions. The Model S has about a dozen moving parts with its battery pack inside the floor sending energy instantly to its watermelon sized motor that turns the wheels. The Model S is by contrast about 60 percent efficient.

Most cars have a large dashboard with various displays and buttons that are also used to protect people from the noise of the engine. With the battery and engine underneath the passengers as part of the chassis the Model S freed up a lot of space in the cab compartment and lowered the cars center of gravity to further increase its outstanding road handling. It feels spacious. A seventeen inch touch screen controls most of the car functions. The car is continuously connected to the internet allowing for streaming of music, navigation help ect. The driver does not need a key or turn a knob to start the ignition. The driver’s weight in the driver seat along with possession of a sensor shaped like the Model S will start the car automatically. The Model S is made of lightweight aluminum which helps it to achieve one of the highest safety ratings in history. And some day it will drive itself.

Elon got started on technology entrepreneurial activities in the 1990’s selling Zip2 and early version of Yelp and Google maps for about 300 million dollars in 1999. He takes his shares and starts up Pay Pal which he sells for about 1.5 billion dollars in 2002. He takes his money from Pay Pal and buys Space X, Tesla and later Solar City and funds their start up activities out of his own money. He is determined to start from scratch in these industries to build in house and rethink much of what is taken for granted in aerospace, automobiles and solar industries. Elon Musk is already rich and he is taking on ultra-risky start up business ventures that can very fast lose someone a fortune. It does.

In the midst of the Great recession Elon Musk is trying to fund a new aerospace company and a new car company. Conventional wisdom is that he should just focus on one company and sell the other one. Elon is not conventional he chooses during the worst recession ever to keep both companies. The burn rate was so bad that The Truth About Cars in May 2008 launched a “Tesla Death Watch”. Mid-June 2008 divorce tumbles Elon into a deep funk. Press did not know the true financial problems Elon faced keeping two companies Space X and Tesla afloat. In October 2008 Elon becomes CEO of Tesla and fires 25 percent of the employees to keep the burn rate from bankrupting the company immediately which he has publically already invested $70 million in. He was a billionaire, now he has literally begged friends and acquaintances for cash to keep out of corporate and personal bankruptcy. He thinks he has found an investor only to have them try to buy the company out from under him.

In despair and out of cash to make the year end payroll Elon comes to Boulder Colorado to visit his brother Kimball Musk who lives here and runs a farm to table restaurant The Kitchen on the west end of the Pearl Street Mall. Kimball is part of the foodie scene in Boulder and his restaurant The Kitchen uses only high end quality fresh ingredients from local vendors making even the simplest of recipes taste amazing. Growing up in South Africa together a meal by Kimball was always a source of solace for Elon. It was a snowy Christmas Eve in Boulder Colorado and we are not sure who or how but a true angel investor appeared to save the Tesla electric car from certain bankruptcy.

Elon was spending the holiday with his brothers family and he totally forgot to get presents, or shower, or sleep really. His company now saved long enough to at least launch the Roadster. Elon now runs down the Pearl Street mall looking and asking for any open stores to buy presents. In some ways it is like a scene out of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. He does find one but not before one couple he asks comment “Only in Boulder will its street people be billionaires launching companies to save the planet.”

By end of 2008 A late round investor added another $40 million to keep the company out of bankruptcy. By January 2009 Tesla has raised $187 million and delivered 147 cars. More investment dollars and cars were to come to give a longer burn rate for Tesla to succeed. Elon was not doing these companies to accumulate more personal wealth but rather to gather the tools needed to make humanity a multi planetary inhabiting species. Elon has long had a plan to make it. To get to other worlds you need to solve energy problems. Tesla Motors is solving energy problems and it is sharing its patents so other companies can join in solving energy problems as well. Elon’s Space X is creating another kind of transport device that can take people to Mars. The odds of colonizing Mars are long but Elon is willing to risk it all, from billionaire to beggar, to make it a reality.

Closer to Earth Apple did not just revolutionize the smartphone it also revolutionized the shopping experience for the IPhone. So did Tesla, you don’t go to a dealership and haggle about price with a pushy salesman. Tesla is sold directly through its own stores and website. Tesla stores are modeled after Apple stores and are often located near them in high end malls or affluent suburbs. Elon placed a showcase store just a couple blocks away from The Kitchen, his brother’s Kimball’s restaurant west of the Pearl Street mall in Boulder CO. Once ordered your Tesla car is delivered to you in concierge style with red velvet ropes leading you to your vehicle and the Tesla team stays in contact with its buyers/members to learn more about what they are experiencing.

While owners sleep at night Tesla engineers tap into the car via the internet to fix problems or add software upgrades. It is like elves coming in the night to add new transportation delights. Since 2014 these delights have included more and more auto pilot features.

Tesla had transformed the car into a truly mobile gadget device that got better after you bought it. It is no longer just a car it is a computer on wheels. As planned the early adopters to the car were Silicon Valley millionaires whose early cash allowed the company to expand to additional market demographics. Traditional car companies thought the car was a gimmick that would fade away. They considered the car to be too elitist and expensive for the masses. By the end of 2012 the Model S was named Motor Trends Car of The Year in its first ever unanimous vote. The Model S is “proof positive that America can still make great things”. It is the first non-internal combustion engine car to win this top award because it handles like a sports car, drives as smoothly as a Rolls Royce, holds as much as a Chevy Equinox and is more efficient than a Toyota Prius. Consumer Reports said ‘it was likely the best car ever made’ and gave the Model S its highest score ever, a 99 out of 100 car rating. The Model S is not just the best electric car it is likely the best car ever made.

Model S owners have driven over one billion miles all on electricity. It is the first plug in vehicle to reach this billion mile milestone. Elon Musk has a plan for Tesla Motors to be an independent car maker selling fully electric cars at prices affordable to the average consumer.

Tesla plans to have “SEXY” models to sell consumers at more and more affordable price points. Musk wanted the first three models to spell SEX but another car company, Ford, owns the trademark to Model E so the digit 3 will be stylized to look like an E. The Model Y was added to be an even more affordable all electric car making the Tesla Models ‘S3XY’ a SEXY showcase for all to enjoy. In late 2017 the Model 3 is planned to be released with a price point of $35,000 before any government incentives. To commercialize electric vehicles Tesla started first with a premium sports car to prove it could be done and get the cash infusion from early technology adopters and then move as rapidly as possible into building vehicles for direct sales and support into the mass market.

At the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn we are proud to be able to offer you a Tesla destination recharge station. You can recharge your Tesla, your IPhone and most importantly yourself so you are ready to face the adventure of a brand new day. Today it is the open western road tomorrow it may be a journey to Mars. Whatever your ultimate destination plans are Boulder Inn is glad to be a part of your hospitality team.

]]>Chautauqua Park – Boulder, Coloradohttp://boulderinn.com/chautauqua-boulder/
Thu, 15 Sep 2016 18:32:03 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2554by Jim Harrington Only 16 blocks away from the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn is the historic Chautauqua Park the 40 acre crowning gem in Boulders Mountain Park and Open Space land holdings that include 45,000 preserved and protected acres with over 150 miles of hiking trails. At the base... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington

Only 16 blocks away from the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn is the historic Chautauqua Park the 40 acre crowning gem in Boulders Mountain Park and Open Space land holdings that include 45,000 preserved and protected acres with over 150 miles of hiking trails. At the base of Boulders inspiring beautiful Flatirons lies a place with turn of the last century charming cottages, a dining hall, a general store, an academic hall, an auditorium, and an open lawn dedicated for people to occasionally watch fireworks and often reflect more deeply into the intrinsic value of one’s life and place in society. Chautauqua Park with breathtaking views, trailheads to amazing hikes, and historic buildings hosts educational and social events to make Boulder ‘not just another pretty face’ but also the ‘Athens of the West’. Boulder’s Chautauqua is the place where the best of the natural world and the best of the examined life come to meet, reflect, move and celebrate. Chautauqua is a place to escape habitual routine in order to engage the body, mind and senses with the inspiration of nature, human heritage and community to elevate both ones thinking and spirit.

Chautauqua meadows

Boulder is filled with world class climbers, athletes, scientists, progressive artists, poets, activists, writers, yoginis, musicians, buskers and so many more residents who have been inspired by the Chautauqua spirit. Boulder’s beauty is both a timeless natural wonder and a cultural vibe. Boulder’s cosmopolitan culture of today emerged from a Chautauqua movement of yesteryear.
Boulder’s Chautauqua Park is also called the Colorado Chautauqua and was born out of a nationwide Chautauqua movement that swept across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The very first “Chautauqua” was a summer school created in 1874 near the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York. The word ‘Chautauqua’ is an Iroquois word meaning either a bag tied in the middle or two moccasins tied together which describes the shape of the lake. It was initially called the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Academy. Methodists of the day experimented with educational opportunities for people outside traditional school settings. Instead of a rigid campus, school or classroom they wanted a more relaxing retreat style, vacation like setting for instruction and discourse. The intent was to be more educational than revivalist. The idea grew rapidly beyond their initial instruction for Sunday school teachers into a broader professionalization of teaching and from there into more artistic and academic subject matters, lectures and trainings. As educational content expanded the original Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Academy became known simply as the Chautauqua Institution.
The Chautauqua movement created about 12,000 traveling and permanent in town encampments for summer community learning centers across the country. At its height Chautauqua was especially popular for those that did not have the resources to attend costly college institutions. The Chautauqua’s functioned as a career training ground for many lower and middle class women and men. Nationally the Chautauqua movement was its own unique form of secondary education.

Postcard of Chautauqua Park – Boulder, CO from the turn of the century.

Boulder’s Chautauqua Park opened in 1898 as the most Western outpost of the Chautauqua’s. This national adult education movement was created to combine culture with the aesthetic beauty and rigor of the great outdoors. Gilded Age travelers’ flocked to Boulder to meet celebratory artists, listen to revolutionary lectures, learn about self-improvement and go hiking in an idyllic natural settling close to the luxurious amenities of town. Teddy Roosevelt a champion of the western rigorous and intellectual life called the Chautauqua movement “The most American thing in America”.
In spite of the heathy rivalry between Colorado and Texas the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder was developed by the Texas Board of Regents to ‘create a summer school for teachers in a cooler desirable location’. Boulder won the bid for Texas to hold a cultural and educational center in town originally called the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua. It was promoted as the ‘most significant and educational retreat west of the Mississippi river’. Boulder was chosen because of its ‘spectacular mountain settings and health giving environment’. To make Chautauqua happen in 1898 the City of Boulder held a bond election where the residents voted to purchase the alfalfa and apple orchards of the Bachelder ranch which was to be used for the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua then also called Texado Park. Over the decades the name changed from Texado-park to the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua to Colorado Chautauqua and eventually just Chautauqua Park. Chautauqua Park contributed to Boulder’s up and coming status as “not just a pretty place” but rather as a sophisticated and innovative city. In the mid 1930’s during the depression, the rise of car culture, radios and movies the national Chautauqua movement slowly died out. The greater Chautauqua spirit lives on in public access television, libraries, YouTube videos, Ted talks, online education etc.

Dining Hall at Chautauqua

Today Boulder’s historic Chautauqua Park sees about a half a million visitors a year and is the only Chautauqua site west of the Mississippi still fully operational and intact in its original form. It is one of the few continuously operating Chautauqua’s in the United States and it is the only one to operate year round. Boulder’s Colorado Chautauqua has been a treasure since its opening and was designated as a national historic landmark in 2006. Visit Boulder and create your own Chautauqua adventure while enjoying the modern amenities here at the Boulder Inn.

]]>Boulder Colorado Weatherhttp://boulderinn.com/boulder-colorado-weather/
Tue, 10 May 2016 22:28:11 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2513by Jim Harrington First day of summer vacation and very occasionally over a foot of snow can fall in the Boulder foothills. Even in the heat of July an afternoon thunderstorm can turn into a hail storm blanketing town and trails with marble sized snowballs. For an hour even Boulder... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington

First day of summer vacation and very occasionally over a foot of snow can fall in the Boulder foothills. Even in the heat of July an afternoon thunderstorm can turn into a hail storm blanketing town and trails with marble sized snowballs. For an hour even Boulder in the northern hemisphere during the middle of summer may really feel like the middle of winter. Weather changes like this, even for an hour, can be a little bit scary. People are advised to be prepared when they hike the high country just outside Boulder’s backyard. Wait 15 minutes or walk a mile and the weather can change but not always this drastically but sometimes.
Fortunately you also have to be prepared for drastic weather changes in winter. But it is a change to really be enjoyed. Sun shining days are not far away even in the midst of winters grip. In Boulder you might grip ski poles in the morning, golf clubs and bike handlebars in the afternoon. Bike paths are plowed well before many roads. Enjoy it all. It still snows in winter it’s just the sun is out in a day or two to melt it away. It is rare to see old snow banks in town. When it snows Boulder likes it fresh, beautiful and gone in a few days. Locals love to visit the accumulation of snow in the high country for some of the best skiing in the world they just don’t want the snow to stay around town too long.
Colorado tourism will tell you Colorado has 300 days of sunshine out of the year. Since the National Weather service is headquartered here in Boulder it’s only fair to set the record straight and acknowledge that is not 100% accurate. Sometimes the sun just peeks out for a couple hours a day. Do you measure the day sunny if the sun is out for four hours or does it have to be sunny all day? Boulderites just feel like they are basking in the sun year round. For a climate with all four seasons intact Boulder has a lot of sunshine in each. If Boulder locals do not get to see the sun, not even a peek, for even a couple days they have a major depression you expect from people who have not seen the sun for weeks. It is not scientific but it does show Boulderites get regular Vitamin D sunshine all year. In springtime people will have both their winter boots and their sandals ready to wear on any particular day. Both are needed.
Boulder has pleasant year-round weather and has a high-desert climate at an altitude of 5,430 feet or a bit over a mile high above sea level. This elevation ensures a mild climate with very little humidity. Locals will start commenting on the humidity if it rises above 30%. The warmest month is in July with an average daytime temperature of 87 degrees Fahrenheit. January is the coldest month in Boulder, with an average daytime high of 45 degrees.
It can get windy in Boulder. The windmills you can see out of town, on the horizons ridge, near the mouth of a canyon are not for power generation but for testing. There is just too much erratic wind at the top of that hill for good wind energy production. If a windmill can function during the high winds coming off the continental divide and gushing through the canyons then they can function well on the plains where the winds are gently more consistent. How awful is it that hurricane force winds of 100 mph or more sometimes come down from the high country into Boulder? Really it’s a blessing called a Chinook Wind. The word Chinook means “Snow Eater” because Native Americans had noticed that when a warm wind blew down the mountains, the snow would disappear. The winter winds warm up on their descent and create a warmer climate in Boulder Valley below where the city resides at the base of the foothills. There are no homes where the windmills are being tested outside the valley. The winds provide cooling in the summertime with the fragrance of a mountain forest throughout the cosmopolitan city. The winds in Boulder are generally gentle but sometimes they can be very gusty for brief periods of time.
When it snows in May or the wind blows hard that is when Boulder weather makes the national news. That’s ok. A secret we want to share with only a few is that Boulder weather is pretty nice on all the other days of the year. Come to Boulder and we think you will enjoy playing outside!

]]>Colorado Football National Championshttp://boulderinn.com/colorado-football-national-champions/
Mon, 21 Mar 2016 19:14:28 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2500by Jim Harrington The casket was closed when the service was open to the public. It was over twenty five years ago but the greyness of the day in a town with over 300 days of sunshine a year will never be forgotten. Nearly the entire University of Colorado at... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington

The casket was closed when the service was open to the public. It was over twenty five years ago but the greyness of the day in a town with over 300 days of sunshine a year will never be forgotten. Nearly the entire University of Colorado at Boulder campus community came out to say a final goodbye to the beaming light of twenty one year old Sal Aunese. His radiant smile melted the hearts of many. It seemed impossible that such an exuberance of life could be gone so soon. Just an hour earlier his casket was open and the service was closed to just family, including his newly born son, coach, friends and CU teammates. To Bill McCartney, a very religious man and the Head Coach of the CU Buffs football team, Sal Aunese was not just a star Colorado University quarterback he recruited; Sal was family. Sal’s playful bountiful life and promising football career was tragically cut short by inoperable stomach and lung cancer. His spirit lived on in the team he led.

Sal wrote a parting letter to University of Colorado Football Team and it was shared on this grey day with all the university. The team wanted the campus to know what they would be doing on Sal’s behalf.

My dearest teammates, coaches, friends and brothers, whom apart from my family I do hold so close,

I come to you all with love and encouragement to continue to do what you, we all, have been doing since our season first started, only to excel and better ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually. Unity is our strength and love is our guide from here on in. Don’t be saddened that you will no longer see me in the flesh, because I assure you I will always be with you in spirit. Hold me dear to your hearts as you know I do all of you. Strive only for victory each time we play, and trust in the Lord for He truly is the way! I love you all, ‘go get ’em’, and bring home the Orange Bowl.

Love, Sal

The entire campus was in mourning for the loss of a fellow Buff at the start of the 1989 football season. CU football players were seen on campus, in class and in practice with a new focused determination. The time to mess around with youthful play things was over. Now was the time to get serious. And serious they were. It was palatable. You could see it in their walk. There was little talk. They were on a mission for Sal. With missionary zeal in remembrance for their fallen leader and friend they held back their personal grief and had a perfect regular season with eleven wins averaging 27 points in their favor and no losses. It was an amazing accomplishment to steamroll through the regular season but it was not enough. It could never be enough.

To be truly perfect they needed one more win. Do it for Sal. Do it for the redemption of CU’s collective sorrow. But for their last game they had to wait from November 18th until January 1st and in that time they lost a little bit of their motivational oomph. They had too much time to reflect on feelings and not enough time to just be playing hard. They were determined it was going to be the storybook perfect ending as they entered the Orange Bowl ranked for the first time ever as the nation’s number one college football team. In the true end zones of life football is only a game and in all games there are many wins and even more learning opportunities both on the field and off. After their 21-6 loss to Notre Dame CU’s dream 1989 season ended and the Buffs finished fourth in the national polls. Grief, like life, does not follow perfect seasons. Life is messy. CU Buffs had to let go of the perfect before grace could shine through their cracks of sorrow. But still what a year it was to roar to an 11-0 regular season record with the first ever short lived number one national ranking in CU’s football history. The fourth place final ranking was still the second best ever for the Buffaloes at that time. But there was still an ache to be even more.

The next year, 1990, the CU Buffs would not be perfect and even at times they looked like a mess but they would be, with the help of a little grace, National champions.

CU football began in 1890 with a 103-0 loss on their first home game. It took one hundred years of learning experiences on the field for CU to become national champions.1989 was just one more year in the long journey to being the 1990 National Champions. The team that would stand shoulder to shoulder for each other first stood on the shoulders of others. CU’s legacy of champions included two of the school’s most famous football alumnus whose jersey numbers had been retired. Byron White played for the “Thundering Herd” in the 1930s, and led the Buffs to their first bowl appearance – the 1938 Cotton Bowl. He was also a Rhodes Scholar and played in the NFL briefly. In 1990 he was still serving as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court where he had previously voted in such landmark rights cases as Miranda vs. Arizona in 1966 and Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Joe Romig was a two-time first-team All-American short stocky lineman, Rhodes Scholar, Astrophysicist that worked on the Voyager missions and explosion expert witness who taught astronomy classes on campus. Many football players from the 1990 team took classes from Joe who could challenge the aspiring astronomy doctoral student and inspire the freshmen music student into learning about the beauty and wonder of the stars.

Team work won the 1990 national championship but it really first began with dream work in in the winter of 1983 when Bill McCartney asked all the in-state players not to make a decision until they visited CU. He wanted them to come in the last weekend before signing day. They gave their word and most of them held to it. The CU buffs stuck together, and they helped recruit a great class in 1987 that made up the core of the national championship team. Raw high school superstar talent would become seeds in the fertile Boulder campus landscape that CU College coaching staff would water to grow strongly linked Buff team roots. Roots than continue to grow as friendships today. The growth of these roots you could not always see back then but one day under an Orange Bowl sun in 1991 they would shoot upward for the privilege to shine on as national champions.

Recruitment was the key to the Buffs success. The best teams are made up of the best players, and those players live primarily in Texas, California, and Florida. “There’s this misconception out there that guys outcoach each other,” Coach McCartney said. “Coaching is overrated, and recruiting is underrated. The reason we won is that we had the best players.” Those players, hit harder, ran farther, passed better, kicked better etc. Coach McCartney did not just pitch to the kids he met with their moms and promised to look over them and help guide them not only into outstanding athletes but also into men of character and integrity. The tactic worked and it was a promise kept. When a kid accepted a visit to CU, the coach knew he had his opening. “I would pick them up at the airport,” McCartney says, “and as we got to the top of that hill on U.S. 36 that overlooks Boulder, I’d pull over. I’d have them get out of the car, and I’d ask them, ‘Have you ever seen anyplace this beautiful?’ ”It wasn’t just a line. McCartney thought Boulder was a little slice of heaven. And because he believed there was no better college town in America, he could promote it. Fortunately Boulder is just the right size, not too big, not too small and has access to a major city in Denver. The populace and all that goes with that, the professional teams, the arts, a major airport providing access to wherever you’d want to go. The aesthetic beauty of Boulder, Colorado is that it has no parallel, and offers what Coach McCarthy called the ‘maximum experience. “You look at its extraordinary beauty, when every day you wake up and say, ‘All right, let’s get up and get it on.’ When you look at the academic experience, there’s none better. We have more winter sunshine than Phoenix, Miami or L.A. You look at the whole experience and not just focus on football and say, ‘What do you want out of life?’ When you add all those things up, Boulder and CU can’t be matched. I’ve been looking around all these years, and nobody else can match what Colorado can offer—the premier college experience in America.” Coach McCarthy continues on: “When I was recruiting, I would say there are other schools that have won more games, others that have better academics, others that might have a better campus. But not all three in a package like the University of Colorado. I personally believed I had the greatest product to offer, and I truly believed what I was saying. I never had a kid say to me even once, ‘Coach, you oversold me on Boulder.’” McCartney’s captivating personality probably had much to do with the team’s success. Recruits responded to his enthusiasm, his vigor, and his ability to inspire. He coined phrases such as, “Big dreams create the magic that stirs men’s souls to greatness.” Dream big and with a little grace a team can become great. Coach McCartney was building something special and he brought exceptional talent to Boulder which often came with large personalities. Coach McCartney’s steadiness brought them together as a team. A team with many great players that would encourage each individual to rev up their game, to fight for each other, to care for each other, and share in the glory.

Sal Aunese was one of those with such tremendous raw talent he was considered by others a “Born Leader”. He was fearless running the ball, could throw well enough and had the ability to inspire a team to be its best. At age ten when others were eating pop tarts he was doing push-ups getting ready for the game. He started playing quarterback at an early age and that gave him a view of the game thinking about what other people were doing on the team and how that effected moving the ball down the field. Sal had a genuine caring and affection for his teammates. And most importantly he had the ability to teach people to have a caring affection for others as well. Coach McCarthy recruited amazing talented players that were superstars in high school. When they got to college they learned that alone they were not the super stars that they thought they were. Darian Hagan was a start quarterback in college at CU he was second string. He was a little intimidated by the talent around him. Sal pulled him aside and let him know he saw him as being even better at the job than he was he just had to stay with it. When Sal got sick Darian had to step up so much earlier than anticipated. Sal loved the game. If he could not play, he was on the sidelines cheering on his team, and when he could not be on the sidelines he was in the box seats watching. Knowing what Sal was going through in his treatments pulled the team together. When they scored they pointed to the stand to let Sal know this was for you. Sal always pointed back to them. The team and the game were his motivation. Too sick to play but not too sick to provide some peer coaching he would come to the quarterback meetings. Over time teammates saw Darian pick up the mannerism of Sal, his cadence his knack for talking to the team in a huddle, moving down the field. Sal may have been “Born to Lead” but he shared what he knew freely for the betterment of all his team. When Sal passed the team kept pointing just higher in the sky now. For the senior players 1989 was the championship year fueled by the emotion of giving it all on the field of play for Sal. It was then that the small “I” of each player died and truly a ‘team’ was formed. It was for Sal. The players needed little coaching. It was perfect until the championship. 1990 would be different they would need all the coaching and grace they could get because everybody was gunning to take them down.

1990 was not a perfect season. Senior team leaders graduated and moved on. Life is messy and awkward. It was awkward in previous seasons when Sal told Coach McCartney he would not marry the coach’s daughter but he would be the father to the coach’s grandson. Even in the awkward and messy moments of life there is no excuse to stop learning and get better. Grief is not linear. Winning a championship game could never make up for losing a friend no matter how hard one tried. Grief needed it’s time to winter in solace, shed some tears begin to bloom in spring enjoying the emergence of tender delights and have time to play with other friends and family just for fun in the summer. The CU Buffs would play in the fall of 1990 still in remembrance of their teammate Sal but also for themselves and all the seasons of their lives that they shared on the field and outside of the game. They were still focused and determined to win but even more dangerous to their opponents they became playful once again. It was a playfulness that Sal would have appreciated. The playfulness showed their joy in life returning and a depth of talent in the team to begin to shine on with help from coaching staff.

In 1990 the CU Buffaloes played the nation’s toughest schedule and scored a total of 338 points while defense only allowed 160 points to earn a 11-1-1 record overall, with a rematch and win 10-9 over Notre Dame’s fighting Irish in the Orange Bowl cementing the school’s first national championship. For the second straight year, CU logged a 7-0 record in league play, marking the first time that the Buffs had claimed the Big Eight Conference title in back-to-back years. That was really all that Coach Bill McCarthy was shooting for. Trying to win the national championship just had too many variables that were outside the team’s control. The 1990 season was very difficult. Bill McCartney said “The schedule is particularly tough…We’re going to have to look at 1990 as two different seasons, the non-conference and the conference. We’ll have to regroup and take inventory after the non-conference schedule to see how we’ve come through it and re-identify our goals.” When the coach says he wants to ‘re-identify our goals’ mid-season; you know it’s going to be a rough year. Six of CU’s regular season opponents ended the regular season ranked in the Top-20, and four of them won their conferences.(Tennessee, Illinois, Texas, Washington). Because CU was so successful last year each opponent showed up to give their best effort to defeat CU and put them in their rightful place. For CU each game would be a grind often with nail biter endings but with each game CU would gain a little momentum and get even a little bit better.

In the 1990 Associated Press preseason poll, the Buffs were ranked No. 5; their first opponent, Tennessee in the Disneyland Pigskin Classic, was ranked No. 8. CU was missing several key players who McCarthy suspended even if it hurt the game for violating team rules in the off season. This included Eric Bieniemy who was on his way to becoming CU’s all-time leading rusher. It was a game that would foreshadow the entire season with a bumpy start, a smoother patch in the middle and a frenzied ending. Colorado overcame three first-quarter turnovers against the Volunteers (that was almost one-fourth of the entire turnover total of the season before) to lead 24-10 early in the fourth quarter. The Buffs couldn’t sustain the lead, and Tennessee caught CU with the game ending in a 31-31 tie.

In game two, Eric Bieniemy scored on fourth-and-goal from the one with 12 seconds remaining to give CU a 21-17 win over Stanford. This was alarming in that Stanford had the worst record in 1989 of the five non-league teams on CU’s schedule, along with the fact that the Cardinal led 14-0 at halftime and had stifled the high-powered CU offense.

It had been 22 months and three days since CU lost a regular season game. Illinois dealt CU what proved to be its only loss of the season but at the time was interpreted as the beginning of more losses to come on Sept. 15 as the 23-22 defeat to the Illini sent the Buffs reeling to No. 20 in the polls. A game that Colorado should have won (CU led 17-3 in the second quarter) turned into a loss and gave CU a 1-1-1 start. Talk of 1989 being a fluke started to surface, that CU had won only because of the collective team emotion in response to the loss of quarterback Sal Aunese.

The next two games put the Buffaloes back on track and ended talk that Colorado was not for real. Colorado’s 29-22 win at No. 22 Texas, with CU rallying from a 22-14 deficit early in the fourth quarter, was the game that McCartney and the team pointed to as the turning point of the season. The game began with the coaching staff packing the team into a small room and telling them they did not like what they were seeing. In their eyes they saw doubt and fear. Last year they saw confidence and resolve. Last year everything kinda clicked and there was great leadership within the team. This year the team faced a more daunting schedule and needed coaching to drive them to success. Now Coach McCartney is a good motivational speaker but his inspirational message does not work if it does not come from within the player first. The buffs were trailing the Texas Longhorns in the second half when during a timeout members of the Buffs offense came out onto the field and implored the CU defense to stop the Longhorns from scoring again. The team regrouped because they knew deep inside of themselves they had what it took to be champions. All the ingredients were mixed together and now a fire was lit and it would not go out. Defense stopped the Longhorns from scoring and the CU offense felt obliged to return the favor by driving to a touchdown when it got the ball back. CU Buffs scored 16 points in the fourth quarter and won the game by a touchdown. Buffalo mojo was back.

A 20-14 win over No. 12 Washington a week later reinforced the national opinion of the Buffaloes, as CU took over the No. 12 spot in the polls after its defeat of the Huskies.

Colorado came through the fierce non-league portion of its schedule with a 3-1-1 record and prepared to defend its Big Eight crown earned the season before. Charles Johnson would make his first career start as quarterback stepping in for the injured Darian Hagan. The field of play was awful with players skidding and falling all over the place. CU suffered 17 unassisted tackles due to the turf conditions. The football field was so bad it was worth complaining about but no one remembers how bad it was now. The Colorado Buffs topped the Missouri Tigers, 33-31, in their league opener amid controversy of the now famous “fifth down.” CU’s Charles Johnson scored the game-winning touchdown as time expired on the last play of the game that should have never happened. The last play of the game was a fifth down. Fifth downs are not supposed to occur in normal play but sometimes grace shines through officiating cracks on the field of play. This fifth down play, created through an incredible mistake by the officiating crew, and unnoticed by Missouri game administration and virtually everyone in the stadium, tainted the CU win and hurt the Buffs image. Fifty years earlier another college team had played for the national championship and won on a rare fifth down only later to forfeit the game and the national title in a gesture of true sportsmanship. Twice in college football history fifth down and goal plays have resulted in controversial triumphs as the clock expired in games that directly impacted the national title. Exactly fifty years separates the two games. In that half century times have changed. Missourians and college football historians still argue about if modern college football lost its soul? or do Coloradans just lack integrity and honor? Those of us in Colorado just accept this gift of grace and move on while Missourians named a bar the Fifth Down Bar and Grill and still drink their sorrows in remembrance of the gift they gave to Colorado. No Colorado brews are allowed. CU’s fifth down play is one of the top memorable moments and blunders in college football history. It was messy but it was a win. And CU buffs took it.

To fire up the team that had been only winning games in the fourth quarter and now had all this noise about winning on an unprecedented fifth down Coach McCarthy decided it was time to stop playing the hunted and to show fans CU was in the hunt. A uniform change was announced. CU would go black at the next home game. The players loved the idea and won the game in an earlier quarter wearing for the first time all black uniforms. Even though the Buffs defeated Iowa State, 28-12, Colorado had dropped back to No. 14 in the rankings though it sported a 5-1-1 record. CU players started to have swagger but some ranking judges just would not let a 5th down win go.

Still, the Buffaloes were off to a 2-0 start in league play, and improved to 3-0 with a 41-10 drubbing of Kansas at Lawrence in week three of the Big Eight season. The win pushed CU back into the top 10 (No. 10), with the Big Reds next up on the schedule.

Colorado knocked off Oklahoma, ranked No. 22 nationally, 32-23, to deal the one-time fourth-ranked Sooners their third straight defeat. The Buffs trailed, 14-6, late in the first half, with OU in position to kick a field goal. Greg Thomas skied to block the attempt, and quarterback Darian Hagan took over to lead the Buffs to a touchdown right before the halftime gun. Bieniemy broke free for a 69-yard TD run in the third quarter, and the Buffs pulled away in the final 15 minutes to dispose of the first of the Big Reds.

A week later, Colorado, now No. 9, traveled to Lincoln and defeated No. 3 Nebraska, 27-12, in rainy, cold and windy conditions. Bieniemy overcame five fumbles to score four touchdowns in the fourth quarter to rally the Buffaloes to the win. It was the first time CU had won in Lincoln for 23 years. The end result was that Colorado had defeated both Oklahoma and Nebraska for the second straight year, and won in th first time in history back-to-back weeks, no less. The Buffs were again undefeated in the Big eight Conference. The Buffs, with an 8-1-1 record, zoomed to No. 4 in the national polls, and needed just one win in their last two games to get back to the Orange Bowl.

The Buffs steamrolled both Oklahoma State (41-22), with Hagen throwing 237 yards for four touchdowns and Kansas State (64-3) to finish the regular season at 10-1-1. The wins also marked the second straight year that CU took the Big Eight title with an undefeated 7-0 record in league play.

When Penn State knocked off Notre Dame hours after CU’s win over K-State, the Buffs became the nation’s new No. 1 team. Thus, as was the case in 1989, the Buffaloes entered the Orange Bowl to defend the nation’s top ranking against Notre Dame, the team that had lost to hand CU the No. 1 claim.

Colorado had the rare chance to play for the national championship a second straight year, and this time around, the Buffs made the most of their opportunity. And with opportunity came some challenges. Gerry DiNardo the offensive coordinator was hired by Vanderbilt as head coach before the big game. With CU’s schedule who thought they would be back in the big game the next year? Coach McCarthy asked Gary Barnett, the quarterback coach, to attend a high school game in Longmont with him to watch a recruit they were courting. At least that is what Barnett was told. During the high school game McCarthy matter of factly told Barnett he was the new team’s offensive coordinator. Oh and by the way your first game in the new job will be in the Orange Bowl with the national championship on the line. Barnett couldn’t speak. Coach McCartney had nothing more to say. Barnett later recalled “from that point on life was a blur”.

In the depth of night on the eve of the 1991 Orange Bowl Darian Hagan was awoken by a dream. He told CJ, Charles Johnson, “hey man I had a dream. I had a dream… that I was going to get hurt in the game and you are going to have to come in and win the national championship for us.” It was a freaky dream and Darian wanted CJ to be ready just in case there was more to it. Even freakier is that Darian’s dream came true. He injured his knee and watched the unbelieving CJ lead the Buffs in the second half of the Orange Bowl. CJ just planned to carry around a clip board and cheer on his teammates now he was Mr Cool under pressure leading his team to victory. Colorado overcame the loss of Hagan and Kanavis McGhee to injuries in the first half, taking the lead for good in the third quarter. Late in the fourth quarter McCarthy decided to punt the ball from his 47th yard line knowing there was a chance the all American return man Raghib “Rocket” Ismail might get his hands on it and run it back. McCarthy told his punter Tom Ruen to kick it through the uprights away from Ismail. The play, like life, did not go as planned. Ismail picked up the ball at the 9-yard line and ran it back 91 yards for a touchdown and most likely a win for Norte Dame. McCarthy kept his cool and looked for saving grace which he found in an officials flag against Norte dame for clipping. The Buffs went on to defeat the Fighting Irish 10-9. The win kicked off a wild celebration by some 20,000-plus CU fans in Miami and hundreds of thousands back home in Colorado. The toughest part of that night for Darian Hagan was that his injury prevented him from jumping around and celebrating with teammates.

Colorado’s 10-9 win over Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl paved the way for the Associated Press to select the Buffaloes as the 1990 national champion. McCartney’s ninth Colorado team attained its goal of claiming the Big Eight title in back-to-back years, and surpassed it by winning the national championship. In the process, CU established itself among the elite in college football. Nine members of the 1990 team were drafted into the NFL, and three players earned Colorado’s first ever unanimous All-America honors (Eric Bieniemy, Joe Garten and Alfred Williams). With wins over Stanford, Texas, Washington, Oklahoma and Nebraska among others, CU played the nation’s toughest schedule and joined the 1982 Penn State team as the only schools at the time to win the national championship while doing so. Sal would have been proud.

In 1990 coach McCartney signed a unheard of 15-year deal, one of the longest contracts ever in college football history. It would have expired in the year 2005, but he had the option after five years of stepping down. While at the top of his coaching career he did just that on November 19, 1994, deciding to retire to spend more time with his wife after that team’s final game, a New Year’s appearance in the Fiesta Bowl. The Buffs were of course inspired to send him off a winner. He was also one of the co-founders of “Promise Keepers,” one of the nation’s fastest-growing Christian organizations in the late 1990s and whom he worked and represented for almost a decade after retiring from coaching. One of the things he shared to stadiums full of largely white Promise Keepers is the difficulty of being a black man in America today. Lessons he learned from his own players adapting to life in lily white Boulder. His greatest accomplishments though were off the field of play and away from fame. In 2004 he stepped away from the limelight of even Promise Keepers. Some of his greatest pleasures were the simple times often over looked in today’s society. Time spent sharing smiles with family and friends.

One of the greatest legacies of the 1990 team was friendship. Being friends was not a requirement for young men recruited to play for CU Boulder. They were the best talent plucked from diverse high school programs all over the country. “When we first went to Colorado we were just young guys looking to find our way,” safety Tim James said. “When we left, we were more established, so we kind of grew up together. We relied on each other on and off the field and it carried on into our adult lives.” “Guys who were on that team, they were groomsmen in my wedding, they were there when my kids were born,” linebacker Chad Brown said. “It’s not just something that we talk about. It’s something that’s actually real and profound and lifelong.” This life long bond is not a reminiscence of having won the 1990 championship as great as a memory as that is. It is because they had this bond that they were able to become champions. “You had a team that would fight for each other; you had a team that cared about each other; you had a team that would play for each other; and you had a team that was unselfish,” receiver Mike Pritchard said. “That’s special. You don’t often find that much talent and that many great players being unselfish.” For some, the bond began to take shape upon their arrival as freshmen in 1986 or 1987. They may have come to Boulder from different walks of life, but they quickly learned the value of being friends. “People always say blood, sweat and tears,” quarterback Darian Hagan said. “That has a lot to do with it, but I think genuinely we had the same heart, the same mental makeup and we all were forging ahead for the same goals.” What sealed this team together though was Sal Aunese . “You have all these young men that are having to deal with mortality and just things that are so much bigger than football,” center Jay Leeuwenburg said. “That really brought us together as men.” Quarterback Charles Johnson said the camaraderie that the 1990 team has is unique. Whether those players were fifth-year seniors or redshirt freshmen, to this day they simply view each as Buffs, and as friends. “There’s something special about that team, and there’s definitely some special friendships that still continue to this day,” tight end Sean Embree said. It is friendship enduring through the sorrows and messes of all our lives that keeps us smiling radiantly. And in the end it is those smiles we will remember forever. Thanks Sal for sharing yours.

]]>Boulder Restaurant Historyhttp://boulderinn.com/boulder-restaurant-history/
Sat, 06 Feb 2016 00:47:16 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2486by Jim Harrington For its size Boulder has always had a large number of restaurants perhaps due to its affluence, being a college town, or just a general lack of interest in cooking indoors when you can be outside hiking, biking, or skiing. But back before the mid 1970’s there... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington

For its size Boulder has always had a large number of restaurants perhaps due to its affluence, being a college town, or just a general lack of interest in cooking indoors when you can be outside hiking, biking, or skiing. But back before the mid 1970’s there were a lot fewer restaurants and honestly not as many good ones. If you sent your typical Boulder bistro diner of today back to the 1970’s they wouldn’t know what to eat. All the food was pretty much American then, the local brew was a Coors beer and there were no fancy coffee shops only simple olde fashioned morning joe coffee. What Boulder had back then was ‘Mork from Ork’, played by Robin Williams, great weather, and famous beat poets who sipped borscht and ate corned beef on rye at the New York Deli, ate ice cream at the middle of the night at the Serendipidty Café and drank whiskey at Potters. With the help of Joan Brett’s Culinary School of the Rockies, now the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts and other natural cooking schools elevating the technical skills of the kitchen staff the food scene in Boulder has improved tremendously to become one of the foodiest towns in the country. Boulder restaurants did not always serve such distinguishing palettes. People use to fly over Boulder to get to Aspen but now Boulder at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is a food destination of its own. Top chefs, attracted to the Boulder lifestyle, perform culinary magic nightly with their skilled staff at restaurants like Frasca, Flagstaff, Greenbriar, Blackbelly, Jax, the Kitchen, Salt, Bacco and others. As good as the award winning food in Boulder is the memory of what it was in years past is always better. Top chefs know it is better to create a new food experience than try to recreate or compete with an old one. Mom’s cooking won’t be beat by any classically trained French chef! As we stroll down memories lane reflecting on yesteryears meals we dine on the nostalgia of Boulder past savory delights. We salivate for that delicious meal not fully remembered yet also even today not fully forgotten by our taste buds. We remember exquisite flavors that can’t be recreated in large part because it was a meal shared in especially good company during Boulder’s simpler days.

In the 1970’s there were Hippie hangouts including the Carnival Café on Broadway between Pearl and Walnut. It was a sharing-caring-cooperative run restaurant that exuded a colorful gypsy-esque potpourri of enthusiastic alternativeness. The Carnival Café was founded initially by Mark Gunther who later sold it to when the debts were paid off to all 20 plus workers many were also in a performance troupe. The “Carnies” as they were called were a lively bunch of buskers running a restaurant, bakery and store who were also involved in theater, clowning and dance. The Café was a collective demonstration that “Life is a Carnival” to be loved and enjoyed every day and was visited by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Allen Ginsburg, Black Elk, Dan Fogelberg, Steven Stills and even Patty Hearstwhen she was on the run. The Carnival Café ended with a prophetic Joni Mitchell song “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Boulder would continue to have a long string of interesting but ultimately short lived natural foods cafes until cooking techniques improved to make them famous. But if we could step back in time and return to tour the magical mysterious Carnival Café even a bowl of their simple rice and beans would surely delight us.

Patty Hearst (1954 – ) a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army is not the only famous outlaw to dine in Boulder. The University of Colorado named its student cafeteria after Alfred Packer ( 1842 – 1907) the only man convicted of dining on his traveling companions. On campus many people prefer to eat alone now. Cowboy Tom Horn had a restaurant named for him on the old Pearl Street, next to where Old Chicago’s and the Pearl Street Pub are today. Steve McQueen played him in the 1980 movie “Tom Horn” Some of the legendary gunmen of the Old West were lawmen, but more, like Billy the Kid and Jesse James, were outlaws. Tom Horn (1860–1903) was both. Tom Horn lived, played and rested in Boulder. He was a scout for the U.S. Calvary during the Apache Wars and helped capture Geronimo. Then he became active in the war between cattlemen and sheepmen and was hired in 1889 to handle investigations around Boulder and the Rockies. He became a hired gun for the ranchers but also did some law work. He even helped chase down Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang. He was a cowboy’s cowboy and some say the old west truly ended when he did. Tom Horns was a great place for a boy to go with his dad to have a burger and think of the cowboy days of Boulder’s past.

There was also a working class restaurant tradition in Boulder with real diners that served real breakfast for real people who had to go to work in the morning. And also places like the Broken Drum bar sometimes called the ‘Drunken Bum’ and Campbells Café that served hard working carpenters and other folks meals and beers after a long day’s work. They were located near 15th and Pearl which is now one of the city’s best looking multi story car parking structures. A lot of tourists don’t even know it’s a parking structure. It has shops on the street level. And the best view of the Flatirons on top.

The times were a changing with emergence of the new Pearl Street Pedestrian mall and memories of the original diners and yesteryear cowboys were being forgotten. A new age was emerging with new ‘Zen Cowboys’ and newly minted finely dressed cowboys pulling their horse trailer in their Cadillac while sipping their cappuccino latte drinks. Boulder restaurants, like Tom Horn’s that served a simple good meal enjoyed by those who knew the value of a hard earned dollar were being replaced with some new exotic cuisine with more expensive tabs. Some of it is quite delicious but fond memories of simpler times, simpler meals with real cowboys remain.

The original Dot’s Diner at 8th and Pearl St emerged at a unique juxtaposition of time in Boulder restaurant history. There were older diners, Greek restaurants that served traditional breakfast fare and there was this new trend of people that loved breakfast later in the day because they stayed up all night. The traditional diners looked at people a little strangely if they came in looking for breakfast at or past the lunch hour. Dot’s saw this as an opportunity and created the brunch experience without any questions asked why one was up so late the night before. Farm fresh eggs, served as you want them and a biscuit with raspberry jam were unique to the Dots experience. Dots started in a gas car repair station with a couple tables inside and a small counter to serve guests. Over time the gas, car and repair station closed and the Dot’s diner took over the entire former gas station. It became a community of musicians, poets, entrepreneurs ect “Where folks meet to get their yolks”. In warm weather it had the best outdoor seating in town. Dots had expressive wait staff with tattoos and interior design filled with a collection of Barbie dolls in funky dress showing off a new emerging culture. Basically like ‘Portlandia’ well before ‘Portlandia’ became known as a thing. Folks knew that because of pending gentrification it could not last and had to be enjoyed in a now too soon gone. When the original Dots Diner was going to close they sold, their name, recipes decorum design to new owners that bought a handful of the old declining Greek diners and turned them into Dots. You can still get a flavor of what the original Dots was at these various locations but somehow it does not match the original. Dot shared everything she knew about running Dots but without her heart in it there was always a little bit of something missing. Isn’t that true with shared recipes of your best dishes? All the same ingredients but the dance that pulled it all together has changed its subtle flavoring. Dots Diners today are still great restaurants to enjoy! And with new Nepalese cooks they have added new culinary dances with great curries and unique chai blends to their breakfast offerings.

Don’s Cheese and Sausage Mart was another Boulder institution with lunch lines going out the door. They had fabulous bratwurst on a bun served with hot German potato salad and white beans. Between 1963 and 1987 Don’s changed ownership, moved into four different locations before slipping into bankruptcy. Highly popular with the lunch crowd, the cheese and meat market was more of a take and go deli than a sit down restaurant.

Don Olk, the market’s founder was a World War II veteran who moved to Boulder in 1961. Two years later, he opened his own business at 1908 Pearl St., in the former John Lund Hotel. Before long, Don founded the Boulder Sausage Co. and began making his own sausages from recipes said to have been passed down through his family. The potato salad was his own recipe of crisp bacon, flour, bacon grease and water mixed with sugar, vinegar, onions, salt and pepper, then poured over cooked diced potatoes. By today’s standards the side dish was heavy on the grease but was highly popular back then. Other staples on the menu included sauerkraut, coleslaw, plenty of spicy hot mustard and garlic dill pickles. In 1968 Don Olk sold out to Joseph Beeler who kept the name of Don’s Cheese and Sausage Mart and ran the 1908 Pearl St. location until 1979, when he relocated the business to 2720 Baseline Road only a couple blocks away from the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn

In 1983, in addition to keeping the Baseline Road location, Beeler opened another Don’s Cheese and Sausage Mart at 1580 Canyon Blvd. (east of the parking lot for Liquor Mart). Both the Baseline and Canyon locations closed in 1985. However, another Don’s Mart opened at 2716 28th St., at Bluff St. (now the relocated home of Dot’s Diner which had originally been at 7th and Pearl) and remained at that location until 1987.

Although a few additional Don’s Marts opened in other parts of Colorado, the 28th Street location was the last one in Boulder. By then, the delis, even with lines of people out the door and the sausage company, under the same management, had slipped into bankruptcy. Sometimes outer success is not financial success. Selling off the deli locations allowed the Boulder Sausage Company to pay back taxes and debts and remain in business. Don’s Cheese and Sausage Mart is gone but their sausages live on in grocery stores. And with work you can make their potato salad recipe

The New York Deli was made famous by its fictional employee Mork from the planet Ork, played by Robin Williams in the 1970’s hit TV sitcom “Mork and Mindy”. As amazing as the fictional comedic chef from outer space is the true founding of the New York Deli at 1117 Pearl St is almost as unbelievable. Above the New York Deli and now where the Boulder Book Store is was the original Tibetan Buddhist Karma Dzong meditation hall and the original Naropa Buddhist and Beat Poet University both founded by Tibetan Monk Chogyyan Trungpa Rinpoche. Alan Schwartz and his wife came to Boulder to study Tibetan Buddhism and were challenged with how to make a living to support their meditation practice in a town with student dominated minimum wage jobs. In 1975 they were inspired to open a genuine New York style deli about 2,000 miles away from its supply chain. Was this was a flash of brilliance? or was it a flash of foolishness? With Robin Williams character ‘Mork’ in their future it had to be a bit of both.

From the first day there were lines around the block, and many comical disasters to laugh at. Outwardly the little New York Deli in Boulder Colorado was a smash hit. But sometimes an outward success can be an inward disaster. None of the owners had ever worked even a single day in a restaurant before.

New York Deli is now Hapa Sushi on Pearl Street

Now they were running an insanely busy deli from morning to night every single day which needed to get its key ingredients over 2,000 miles away. With all this busyness it was disturbing to discover the illusion of their outward success stood in contrast to their private sinking experience. They gained valuable financial advice from their meditation teacher who said, “When you are in the crocodile’s mouth, you have to carefully examine every tooth.” They were not experiencing cash flow loss due to any theft or major loss. Instead they were suffering impending bankruptcy due to a thousand irregular slices – they were going broke a nickel at a time. Every time four and three-quarter ounces of pastrami (instead of four) went out between the slices of bread, every time a glass was dropped and broken, every time a server worked an hour when there was slack time, every time they sent someone to the supermarket because some ingredient ran out, another tiny sum of money flowed out rather than in. And of course, driven by the urge to ingratiate themselves to their customers, friends and teachers their prices were just a little too low. By paying attention to each ‘tooth’ they were able to save their business. It was a balance between being generous to your paying customers and watching out for every nickel and dime spent. The New York Deli stayed in business about 25 years until high rents on the popular Pearl Street Mall forced it to close in June 1999 to be replaced with a trendy Hapa sushi bar. On closing day, “I was here on opening day, and I’m here on closing day,” said Bob Chervin, who estimated he’s eaten at the deli 500 times. “This place reminds me of my roots. I had to have my pastrami on rye, my chicken matzoh-ball soup and my Dr. Brown’s celery tonic one last time. Can’t get it anywhere else done right but in New York city or in this restaurant.”

John Lehndorff Boulder’s food critique and enthusiast extraordinaire with over 40 years’ experience nibbling around town called the late 1970’s in Boulder “the golden age of the fern bars” ranging from JJ McCabe’s to The Walrus, Potter’s, Pearl’s, Tico’s, Banana’s, Sebastians, and Pelican Pete’s; they all served casual fare. Tico’s was the best Mexican restaurant ever and is now the Rio Grande. Pelican Pete’s on Arapahoe an Folsom owned by Pete Brophy was one of the first places in Boulder to serve fresh seafood requiring a supply line over 2,000 miles that had to be delivered by air to still be fresh. Even Fred’s on Pearl Street across from the courthouse with its monster burger got a fern bar make over and music stage. Fred began playing music after the age of 50 and loved sharing tunes, burgers and cherry apple pies with all his guests. Fred’s most notorious guest old Mr. Lowry, a civil war vet who was often asleep in his soup. Fred looked out for him and the alley behind Fred’s on the Pearl Street Mall is named Lowry lane in his honor. The alley on the other side of the Mall is named Tom’s way for Tom Eldridge former philanthropist, city council member and the owner of Tom’s Tavern that never got a fern bar make over. Film critic Roger Ebert would always eat at Tom’s when he was in town. Salt Bistro is there now and has a pretty good burger on its menu in honor of Tom’s Tavern. Brunch became an every-weekend occasion embraced at places like Nancy’s Restaurant, Rocky Mountain Joes, Lucille’s, Jose Muldoons and of course Dot’s Diner. You could still have your wake-up meal big, loud and messy if that’s how you like it at The Aristocrat Steakhouse sometimes called “The Artistic Rat” at Broadway and Spruce with their 13 egg omelets and foul mouthed cook. They were always hiring new waitresses.

Ferns and the aroma of spiced tea decorated The Good Earth Restaurant, which tapped a growing desire for a more comfy natural-foods dining experience. It later became The Harvest and now has metamorphosed into is Turley’s Kitchen at Pearl and 28th St.

Boulder beer snobs in the 1970’s were sipping foreign brews but took to heart the slogan ‘think globally and act locally’. They started drinking domestically from their own home grown brews that got so popular with their neighbors and friends they opened Boulder’s first brew pub, the Boulder Beer Company, which introduced the novel idea of truly local ales. Then there was the debut of the Great American Beer Festival started in Boulder at the Hilton Harvest House (now the Millennium Hotel) and this was a game-changing glimpse of craft breweries to come. The dawn of restaurant beer lists, notably the 100-beer menu at the first Old Chicago (formerly Walt & Hank’s), added to local brew sophistication. The local beer movement would grow to become a national trend.

Over time Boulder’s tastes grew up from thrilling all American dining with real cowboys, to hippie hangouts, to mesmerizing chefs from outer space, to an explosion of fern bar adventures and comfy natural food selections to today being one of the foodiest cities in the nation. Dining well does not have to be as expensive as it is in Aspen Shamane’s Bake Shoppe (2825 Wilderness Place) and Zoe Ma Ma (2010 10th St.) are going to be highlighted on the food networks Cheap Eats for their big sellers ‘: chicken pot pie ($8.50) and za jiang mian ($7). Boulder is now, has been in the past and will continue to be in the future a remarkable fun place to go out to eat. Bon A petit!!

]]>Boulder Natural Foodshttp://boulderinn.com/boulder-natural-foods/
Fri, 18 Dec 2015 17:21:12 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2457By Jim Harrington. Looking for health food stores in Boulder while staying at the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn? Look for them at three Whole Foods stores, Alfalfas, Vitamin Cottage, Trader Joes, Lucky’s, Sprouts, and even in traditional grocery stores like King Soopers, Safeway and Walmart. Just ask at the... Read more »]]>By Jim Harrington.

Looking for health food stores in Boulder while staying at the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn? Look for them at three Whole Foods stores, Alfalfas, Vitamin Cottage, Trader Joes, Lucky’s, Sprouts, and even in traditional grocery stores like King Soopers, Safeway and Walmart. Just ask at the Boulder Inn front desk to find the closest stores just a block or two away. Boulder has an abundance of natural foods, open space, mountain parks, sunshine, shopping, brew pubs and bike paths to enjoy. This and more helped create the fertile ground for a local natural foods industry to grow into a national movement. Many national natural food products and grocery stores started in Boulder during the 1970’s and later. But it was seventy years earlier that the Boulder Valley landscape was first tilled for the natural food entrepreneurs of today to grow.
The genesis of the natural foods industry in Boulder began in 1896 with the opening of the Sanitarium at the base of Mount Sanitas. The Sanitarium, with the Latin base root meaning “Sanity and Health”, drew health-seekers from around the world. The Boulder Sanitarium was part of a growing national movement called the Western Health Reform Institute. The institute promoted ‘hydro-therapy, exercise and a vegetarian diet’ as the way to good health.

The Boulder Sanitarium at the base of what is now called Mt. Sanitas

More than a century ago, the “San” as the “Sanitarium” was nicknamed and how Mount ‘Sanitas’ is pronounced by Boulder locals today, was a resort and health spa with claims to cure both ‘body and soul’. It included hikes up the mountain,–right out the facility’s backyard ‘outdoor gymnasium’. Today the Mount Sanitas trail is one of Boulder’s most popular hiking destinations including a nice gradual valley walk up Dakota Ridge to a scenic overview of the city and majestic Flatirons along with a steeper backside trail to the summit used by experienced hikers in the off season to prepare for submitting Colorado’s fourteeners in the summer months.
The sanitarium was run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church and was founded by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Michigan. Dr. Kellogg had become a follower of Sylvester Graham, the first person to make affordable and nutritious graham crackers as a whole wheat breakfast food available to the larger general public. Dr. Kellogg then invented granola and started to combine nuts and grains into other foods which he prescribed for his patients. One of Dr. Kellogg’s patients was Charles Post, inventor of “Elijah’s Manna,” which didn’t sell well until Mr. Post changed the cereal’s name to “Grape Nuts”.

An early box of Elijah’s Manna, now called Grape Nuts

Dr. Kellogg’s first claim to fame was in rolling and flaking kernels of corn. He stated, “new-fangled corn flakes provide the very best capital upon which people who have real work to do in the world can begin the day.” With 2015 sales of $3.33 billion many people are still starting their day with their favorite Kellogg cereals.
Today we accept as fact that diet and exercise are essential to one’s health and well-being. This obvious fact of today was a brand new controversial concept in the late 1800s. Victorians of that age were well known for five course meals, rich with meats, cream, starch, butter and sugar. In 1876, a typical breakfast could consist of steak, bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes and sausage, porridge, donuts and fruits. Dr. Kellogg believed this diet was at the root of many of the diseases that plagued his generation. Dr. Kellogg was determined to change the way Americans not only ate, but lived, and developed the Sanatoriums as a place where guest’s lifestyle could be changed into a healthy one. Dr. Kellogg was potrayed by actor Anthony Hopkins as an eccentric in the 1994 movie “The Road to Wellville.” The Sanatoriums became a popular and profitable method of spreading the gospel of good health. By the turn of the century, he and his brother, W.K. Kellogg began to use lessons and recipes learned from the sanatoriums to produce healthy affordable food for the masses. This historical model for national healthy food product development became a guide for Boulder’s future natural foods industry. From the late 1970’s onward Boulder was a place where natural food entrepreneurs could test and perfect their product recipes, marketing labels and begin to manufacture and distribute healthy foods nationally.
Dr. Kellogg’s essential advice on exercise and health food is timeless. In addition to prescribed hikes up Mount Sanitas, he told his guests to “eat what the monkey eats–simple food and not too much of it.” At its height, the Sanatorium had its own dairy, bakery, a food factory to produce new healthy foods for convenient mass consumption and a natural food store to share with the larger Boulder community.
By the 1940’s the Sanitarium had closed. But its influence was still felt in Boulder neighborhoods. These local Boulderites and their children would be receptive to the sprouting natural foods businesses that would begin to emerge in the early 1970’s.

Boulder hippies circa 1970

In the 1960’s and 1970’s the back to earth hippies started to migrate to beautiful places like Boulder with their new dietary explorations for greater health and prosperity. Lost in food rebellions of their day few hippies knew then they were following the legacy of Dr. Kellogg. Boulder hippies created new health food products, grocery stores and retail strategies to make Boulder Valley the Silicon Valley of natural foods. Dr. Kellogg would be so proud. In the 1970’s health food in Boulder was really not as ubiquitous as it is today. To satisfy health food buyers’ longings there was a bread bakery from the old Sanitarium days (called ‘Sanitarium Bakery’), the Green Mountain Granary Grocery and a Carnival diner of cooperatively minded buskers.Downtown Boulder, near what would become the Pearl Street Mall, was a row of old wooden storefronts from the early part of the 1900’s that had been taken over by young entrepreneurs. In the early 1970’s the rent was cheap and month to month because one day the City knew it would turn the buildings into a parking lot but for seven plus years a healthy searching entrepreneurial soul could find there free loving hippies engaged in a sharing-caring-cooperative movement running a small restaurant brightly named the Carnival Café and up the street a small co-op grocery called the Green Mountain Granary. The Carnival Café exuded a gypsy-esque bundle of energy that called upon like-minded wanderers to its doors. The Cafe was a colorful potpourri of numerous, luminous enthusiastic alternativeness. The Carnival Café was founded initially by Mark Gunther who later sold it to all 20 plus workers many were also in the performance troupe who had gained significant experience with Mark in cooperative business operations in and around Berkeley, California. They brought their cooperative business expertise from California to Boulder. The “Carnies” as they were called were a lively bunch of buskers running a restaurant, bakery and store who were also involved in theater, clowning and dance. The Café was a living workers collective demonstration that “Life is a Carnival” to be loved and enjoyed every day. The food was affordable vegetarian healthy grub rich in local vibrant ingredients and made with plenty of “free love”.
The cafe was visited by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Alan Ginsburg, Black Elk, Dan Fogelberg, Steven Stills and others. Joni Mitchell, knowing the fate of the Café to come, once drew a picture on a napkin of the Carnival Cafe turning into a parking lot. The East- West Journal, the Yoga Journal and other national magazines heralded the Carnival Cafe as the prototype for a collective business.
But all good things must come to an end. In 1977, the city announced that an entire block of buildings would be torn down to make room for a parking lot. People made parallels to Joni Mitchell’s lyrics, saying “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Despite protests, no one in power was going to listen to a bunch of hippies over the parking needs of paying downtown customers.
The Carnival died a premature death but its loyal keepers of the heart spread to the four winds and took on other adventures including leading an emerging Boulder natural foods industry in teas, tofu and grocery stores. The passing of the Carnival Café, like the passing of the Sanitarium signified another passing of an era in Boulder. Now Boulder started to change from being a Western college town to being a sophisticated metropolitan growing community at the foothills of the Rockies and an incubator for wholesome food products and stores.
The popular Green Mountain Granary, one of the first real natural food stores in Boulder, was razed to make space for the new Senior Citizens Center. Hanna Kroeger’s New Age Foods on Pearl Street, an outgrowth of the European natural foods movement which started well before the US hippies discovered it, kept making wonderful, inexpensive nutritious meals well into the 1980s. But when the US ‘New Age’ and yuppies truly hit Boulder helping to make the Pearl Street Mall a huge success, gentrification was assured and they brought with them new upscale businesses to the Mall that drove out most of the local stores. Hannah’s New Age Foods was one of the last ‘Carnival like’ cafes to leave town.
The Carnival Café left a big imprint on the city’s culture and consciousness during its short existence. It offered a cherished look at “life as a dance waiting to be danced and a song waiting to be sung. …amongst all of one’s daily work and strife, you need to not just stop and smell the flowers along the way, but lie among them and be one yourself.”
Flower power of the 1960’s and 1970’s would lead Mo Siegel to pick wild flowers and herbs in Boulder Mountain parks to brew into an assortment of teas. During his hikes he filled up gunnysacks with chamomile and red clover blossoms then sewed them into little muslin tea bags. With the help of the assembled flower children of the day he tested, rebranded and sipped his way into the successful founding of ‘Celestial Seasoning’ the label that became known for teas such as ‘Sleepytime’ and ‘Red Zinger’. Mo Siegel eventually sold his company to Kraft Foods, later bought it back, and then sold it again to Hain Foods for $336 million. It became part of the Hain Celestial Food Group which has projected 2015 net sales to be about $2.8 billion.
Petal power would compel Steve Demos to experiment with cooking techniques of the Far East, cooking up first in a bucket and then in his cauldron a new company ‘White Wave’ and tofu delicacies for the western palate to later include ‘Silk’ milk. He would pedal on his bike around town and sell tofu from a bucket to health food stores and cafes. The tofu cauldron was an innovation over the plastic bucket on back of his bike and it looked like a witches brew pot but what it did was expand tofu production and helped launch White Wave Foods. The tofu company Steve Demos brewed up in that pot had net sales of $3.4 billion in 2014. The cauldron was recently among the artifacts voted as Colorado’s 10 Most Significant Historic Artifacts.

An earl picture of a White Wave employee pressing tofu

These products and others grew into such a success because the small funky health food stores of the 1970’s and 1980’s grew to become today’s modern grocery stores. As the health food stores grew from counter culture to upscale so did their need to have more products to put onto their growing shelf space. Stores needed new natural food products that fostered not only good health and convenience but also style. Yesterday’s Kellogg flakes, Graham Crackers and Grape Nuts would not do. Health food stores got a retail makeover which created a need for more natural food products which created a need for larger and more health food stores. This ongoing cycle of growth led, according to the Natural Foods Merchandiser, a Boulder-based industry trade publication, to more than $152 billion dollar domestic sales of natural, organic and health products we have today. They project this could grow to $252B by 2019. This is a compound average growth rate of 8.6%, which is more than four times the projected growth rate of normal mainstream consumer packaged goods. Yes, people will pay more for what they perceive is good for them. This industry started with flower power, small stores and hippies with dreams.

The grand opening of Alfalfa’s Market in Boulder, Colorado

Boulder’s natural foods industry all started at a small health food store in the late 1970’s experimenting with modern retail techniques called the Pearl Street Market. It was so successful immediately they had to open in a larger location also on Pearl Street and then find even another larger location to move into within a couple of years. Pearl Street Market should be a historic monument because it is a historic moment in natural food history. It was the forerunner of everything else that happened. There would be no Whole Foods, which opened later in Austin Texas, without the initial success of the Pearl Street Market. What they did was start to move the selling of natural foods from health store retail to upscale grocery. They sold bulk coffee, had a dairy case and sold a much better selection of vitamins and natural products than any other store anywhere nearby. They eventually moved to a former Safeway grocery store in downtown Boulder and rebranded as Alfalfa’s Market. With the new move to a larger space they fully embraced having a prepared foods department and melding natural foods and gourmet foods. The store opening was not full, it was not packed, it was mobbed by people ready for a new grocery experience. Over time the legend of Alfalfas still lives on in a song “I wanna work at Alfalfa’s” by Boulder-bred band, Leftover Salmon. –

“When I grow up, I wanna work at Alfalfa’s!
Where the cheese is dairy free.
A Birkenstocks, Spandex, necktie patchouli grocery store.
I’d have a job, picking through the produce – no pesticides for me!
I’ll be a working moderate income socially conscious Boulder hippie!
And I’d drink soy milk all day long
And fest on bulgar, wheat grass, and Windom Hill songs.
Ride home on my mountain bike,
Just in time to turn on my solar powered growing lights.”

Now some very good entrepreneurs locally and nationally took note of what was happening. The high end grocery business model could be brought to natural foods by creating high turnover of healthy food which allowed for lower retail margins, relatively reasonable prices, easy access, and good availability. The new natural foods entrepreneurs saw win-win opportunities to make a business selling only products you cared about, while improving people’s lives and changing the world for the better.

The focus was no longer just on the hippie lifestyle but on the shopping experience and the good health of young families. The timing and demographics were right for a natural foods revolution led by caring health conscious moms making food buying choices for their new families. This was not about the rise of the health food store in select neighborhoods this was about the revolutionary transformation of the traditional grocery store into a natural foods shopping experience.
Alfalfas would blossom with their success into eleven stores. Two former employees Michael Gilliland and his wife, Elizabeth Cook had a greater national vision for natural grocery retail stores and in the later 1980’s maxed out seventeen credit cards and took a second mortgage on their mom’s house and bought the original Pearl Street Market store to learn the ropes of transforming a health food store into a natural foods grocery store and proceeded to launch a new grocery chain. When they were ready to take off they named the second store they purchased in South Boulder, now a Whole Foods Market two blocks from the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn, ‘Wild Oats’ and created a holding company with the same name and a strategy for rapid growth. The national landscape was ripe with regional health food stores lacking gourmet foods and specialty gourmet food shops lacking natural foods. Acquiring these individual stores under one banner and applying grocery store chain management with upscale retail marketing techniques allowed for the rapid expansion of the natural foods industry to take a larger market share of peoples grocery dollars. In 1993 and 1994, Wild Oats was named one of the “500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America” by Inc. Magazine. In 1996, it became a public company traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market. By the turn of the millennium Wild Oats would grow to about 110 stores in 24 states and Canada and become the nation’s second largest natural and organic foods chain.
Supermarket News ranked Wild Oats No. 63 in the 2007 “Top 75 North American Food Retailers” based on 2006 fiscal year estimated sales of $1.2 billion. Wild Oats was included in Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO) magazine’s annual “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list for 2007, ranking No. 59 out of 1,100 U.S. public companies surveyed.
Wild Oats went into direct competition with Alfalfas Market regionally and eventually bought them out. Then Wild Oats went into a head to head national competition with Whole Foods for dominance in the national natural foods grocery business. Whole Foods would come to Boulder and build their flagship store 10 blocks down the street from the original Pearl Street Market and under cut all the prices in town until they were the only game in town. It quickly became their best-selling store. In 2007 Wild Oats lost the natural food competition and Whole Foods bought them out for an estimated $565 million. After extensive regulatory battles with the Federal Trade Commission and US Federal Courts concerned with maintaining competitiveness in the natural foods marketplace it was determined Whole Foods had to sell some of the Wild Oats stores it had purchased along with the Wild Oats product label and Intellectual property. The original owners of Alfalfa’s have since bought back their original store and relaunched. The Wild Oats brand label has been bought and sold by several distributers and now currently produces and distributes various food products, including cereal, beverages, condiments, frozen and fresh items through partnerships regionally with Fresh & Easy stores in California, Nevada & Arizona and with Walmart stores nationally, “part of their strategy to remove the price premium that is associated with organic products.” Just like the tradition of Dr. Kellogg a hundred years earlier making good food available to the masses.
The original owners of Wild Oats went on vacations until their non-compete clause expired and then they went at it again starting a new chain of grocery markets called “Sunflower” that would later sell to “Sprouts” and now some of the original Wild Oats team are taking a another Boulder grocery venture “Lucky’s Markets” into a national grocery chain.

A modern Lucky’s market

The original Pearl Street market that started it all was now too small to be a Whole Foods or Alfalfas store and it was closed but not before the neighborhood rose up to try and save it and when that failed utopian activists opened a cooperative market just up the street with a re-blooming of the Carnelavesque and Green Mountain Granary spirit of yesteryears. That rebirth of idealism lasted about four years before it too closed. Natural foods in Boulder are not to be found in islands of carnival like cooperatives but in mainstay grocery stores. The times had indeed changed both for the better health of the masses and increased national grocery sales of natural foods.
Traditional grocery stores were not going to let the rising trend in natural foods pass them by so they upped their game and created islands of natural food stores in their larger supermarkets. At the grunt level what is telling about natural food stores is their earth tone flooring, wooden shelving and special lighting onto ever new and exotically healthy hip natural food products.

The natural foods business in Boulder started out with young baby boomers seeking out alternative life styles. As time passed hippies began to settle down in town and have families. They still wanted healthy food but now also with modern convenience. Thanks to a boom in international travel and relatively cheap flights abroad these former hippies had also traveled more than most generations before them. The baby boomers had tasted stuff in other places. They were more open to the world and more open to the new world of healthy foods that was being created for them. There was no way the traditional grocery store was not going to pay attention to the expanding tastes of this new larger upwardly mobile generation. So over time traditional grocery stores got healthier too. Also natural food manufactures wanted to expand their product into everyday life. Steve Demos studied shopping habits at a traditional “King Soopers” grocery store in Boulder and crafted ‘Silk’ milk. Organic soymilk sold in a regular packaged milk box in the cooler where people in the US people go to buy fresh milk. Before then soy milk was in a square box sold on the dry shelf with other exotic health food items as you may find in Europe. By catering to the American shopper White Wave Foods was able to extend soy products into US consumers’ everyday life via their normal culinary tastes.
Grocery stores have many items on their shelves and it seems like many companies are competing for you your dollar but really mostly a handful of companies own the majority of items and their respective labels sold in major grocery stores. Those larger traditional companies started to go shopping for natural food companies to add to their portfolio and Boulder natural food companies were ripe for the picking. In fact Boulder is an incubator for them. A whole bunch of companies have gotten spun out as a result, and are now national or international players. Things like IZZE soda, sparkling water with fruit flavors now owned by Pepsi was started here as was Horizon Organic Dairy. Phil Anson a mountain climber line cook began selling burritos out of a cooler to other climbers in Eldorado Canyon, some of the world’s best climbing only a handful of miles from the Best Western Boulder Inn in early 2002. In 2013 he sold the frozen food company he formed to support huis climbing habit to Boulder Brands for $48 million dollars. Boulder Brands was purchased by Pinnacle Foods at the end of 2015 for $975 million. They intend to maintain the Boulder offices because Boulder is a hot bed of trendy food start ups. In 2004 Justin’s peanut butter started selling at the Boulder Farmers market and eight years later had revenue growth placing the on Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the country. Boulder is one of the foremost makers of chai. There are two major chai companies here Bhakti and Third Street and a number of smaller ones like Sherpa and Sanctuary. Before Starbucks would deploy their chai in stores nationwide they tested and refined it here in Boulder first. One thing they learned how to refine better was the selection of dairy milk substitutes to use. So Boulder as an incubator fed on itself. New companies could be formed in garages, second kitchens, introduced at farmers markets, relabeled refined and brought into Whole Foods stores and then relabeled again to be sold to the bigger grocery conglomerates. The City of Boulders Open Space and Mountain Parks helps make Boulder a great city to live in but it also creates a green border that limits the size companies can grow. The result is a town for incubation and creativity within smaller businesses. After successful companies start having 100’s of employees or so they either start to look at moving out or selling to continue to grow their operations. That may be limiting to established business but it creates fresh opportunities for new start-up companies to emerge.

Justin Gold, founder of Justin’s Nut Butter

And what do you do after you sell your natural foods company? Take a vacation, get bored as retired entrepreneurs often do return home to Boulder or move to Boulder and become part of a network of support to pass the torch of inspiration to a new generation of natural foods entrepreneurs and become an angel investor to help a new company take this ride all over again. All sort of companies come here to be at the epicenter of the natural foods industry in hopes launching the next national brand.

An early picture of Celestial Seasonings founder Mo Siegel, collecting herbs at the base of Boulder’s Flatirons

When you take a hike and see some herbs do you think of starting a tea company? When you travel abroad and see foreign food being prepared like tofu do you think of forming a new company out of a cauldron? When you see high end retail shelving, lighting and floor practices in New York department store’s do you ask why not sell groceries that way? Do you want to sell healthy frozen food to your climbing buddies? Do you make your own peanut butter or some other tasty delight and wonder why you can’t buy it at the grocery store? If you do you may be a food entrepreneur. Come to Boulder hike up Mount Sanitas and follow in the steps of Dr. Kellogg, Mo Siegel, Steve Demos and others. Boulder has a team of people to help you make good food affordable and available to the mass national market. And Boulder Inn is glad to be part of your hospitality team. Whether you are here in town for business or just here to eat great food, enjoy good company, take spectacular hikes and drink fresh brewed beer Boulder Inn is happy to meet your hospitality needs. Call us any time at 303.449.3800 and ask for Ari if you are looking for a business rate. We know Boulder Business and Boulder’s Social life and we are here for you.

]]>Boulder Wildlifehttp://boulderinn.com/boulder-wildlife/
Wed, 14 Oct 2015 21:45:23 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2434By Jim Harrington Wildlife in Boulder Colorado is a natural part of everyday urban life. Wild animals know the City of Boulder with over 145 miles of recreational trails is surrounded by over 45,000 acres of open space and mountain parks which provide special geologic features and unique animal habitats.... Read more »]]>By Jim Harrington Wildlife in Boulder Colorado is a natural part of everyday urban life. Wild animals know the City of Boulder with over 145 miles of recreational trails is surrounded by over 45,000 acres of open space and mountain parks which provide special geologic features and unique animal habitats. In addition the surrounding Boulder County Parks and Open Space has another 100,000 acres of open space including 25,000 acres of active farms and ranches, plus another 115 miles of recreational trails. And at the edges of the county are even more picturesque national forests and parks. Numerous expansive view corridors make Boulder beautiful and also provide migration paths for wild animals to come from the great Colorado outdoors into the normal everyday urban life of the city.
Enjoy the Boulder views and know we are not alone. We share the land with wild animals. We have mountain lions, mule deer and bears to call our very own neighbors. Oh my! Being good neighbors we try to keep a respectful distance. Animals often see us well before we see them. And sometimes we never do.
We assure you Boulder is a pretty tame place. We are not as wild as we report to be. Occasionally we see a moose walk by our red brick Pearl Street mall, or a elk walk through a downtown neighborhood at night or we see a bear falling from a tree on the University 0f Colorado campus. It is a rare occurrence for us but it happens every now and then. Mule deer on the other hand they are seen here every day.
Boulder residents care about animals. We are learning to be better neighbors by keeping our trash to ourselves. We require Boulder neighborhoods to have bear proof trash cans to keep bears out of our organic junk food. We want to help our wild neighbors to thrive and have formed two nonprofits, the Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and the Wild Animal Sanctuary to help them when they are ill.
Inspired by a young woman with an infectious passion to rescue injured animals, people in Boulder came together in 1982 to form the Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center is devoted to the rehabilitation and release of orphaned, injured and sick wildlife. The center is named “Greenwood” after one of the first beloved animals to be rescued, a raccoon who survived a chimney fire. The raccoon survived because green wood doesn’t burn. The Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation is the largest wildlife rehabilitation center of this kind in Colorado, each year treating approximately 2,500 mammals, birds and waterfowl representing nearly 200 different wildlife species. To help support their efforts they run the Greenwood Wildlife Thrift Shop & Consignment GalleryThe Wild Animal Sanctuary is the world’s largest carnivore sanctuary with more than 400 rescued lions, tigers, bears, and wolves living and roaming freely on 720 acres. It is the first sanctuary of its kind to create large acreage species-specific habitats for rescued animals.
Established in 1980, The Wild Animal Sanctuary is a state and federally licensed zoological facility. Originally started outside Boulder, CO,

Eddy The Black Leopard – Featured on Animal Planet

they soon moved to nearby Lyons, CO, and have since expanded to 720 acres of high plain grasslands 50 miles east of Boulder. The Wild Animal Sanctuary is open for supporters to visit year round.
The Wild Animal Sanctuary has three main missions, …to rescue captive large carnivores who have been abused, abandoned, illegally kept or exploited…to create for them a wonderful life for as long as they live…and to educate the public about the causes and solutions to the captive wildlife crisis. They have also given tiger and lion manure to local farmers to keep mule deer away from their crops.
Boulder is home to wild animals and the people who love them. Come visit and discover the wild habitats we all share including the special shelters the people of Boulder created to help wildlife flourish.

]]>Great Hotel Pools of the Worldhttp://boulderinn.com/great-hotel-pools-world/
Fri, 21 Aug 2015 18:04:53 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2399by Jim Harrington Boutique Hotels and Resorts have the best swimming pools! Since the 1930’s pool manufacturers have been using hotel pools to showcase their new luxury swimming pool designs to prospective buyers. Whether you are in the market for a new pool or not please feel free to visit... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington

Hearst Castle pool

Boutique Hotels and Resorts have the best swimming pools! Since the 1930’s pool manufacturers have been using hotel pools to showcase their new luxury swimming pool designs to prospective buyers. Whether you are in the market for a new pool or not please feel free to visit your favorite hotel and swim in a fabulous pool just like the 1%! Sadly, not everyone is going to be invited to splash around in the opulent pools at the Hearst Castle.

Today’s pool manufacturers have found ways to lower costs and increase sales by selling more pools to more ‘income diverse’ people. Not surprisingly regular folks want to see a pool before they own it. What better way to show off the latest and best in pool design than at a hotel?

Even if you can’t afford to buy the pool now you can check in and indulge for a weekend of luxury. Step into fluid spaces that aesthetically soothe your soul and sensuously caress and comfort your skin. If you won a tour of a dozen hotel pools around the world which ones should you check out? Besides staying here at the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn consider soaking in these:

This hotel pool may look familiar due to its appearance in Sofia Coppola’s film “Lost in Translation”. Away from the metropolis below one can swim laps through the subtly shining blue basin mixing with the color of the sky while enjoying the view of the bustling city below while enjoying Zen like peaceful tranquility.

Float from the cool dark shade of the slate clad spa area to the infinity edge of this 37 meter stainless steel pool. The water mirages into the pale blue sky overlooking Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea. The Miramar outdoor bar awaits your drink order.

In a spectacular manner glass is used throughout this hotel located in Ekali a northern suburb of Athens Greece. Swimming pool guests can be seen through this transparent material both above and below the pool surface.

Enjoy postcardesque views of the rainforest or the beach below. Indulge in your own private suite pool or the main pool which is a freestanding cube perched on a steep slope. You can swim to look out upon three sides of this infinity edged pool and take in panoramic views of the rainforest or the Indian Ocean. Swimming here is like swimming off into the far distant oceanic horizon while still being able to step outside the pool and have a revitalizing cool drink a the pool bar.

Blends well into the green terraced landscape near Ubud but also seems very futuristic. From afar the pool in the uppermost hotel extension appears to be a UFO, a former flying saucer tipped over after landing and filled up with rain water that now mirrors the blueness of the sky. The top most pool is for decoration only however there is also a two level swimming pool that cuddle into the natural form of the rocks. Over the pools edge one can see the course of the Ayung river which seems to act as a continuation of the hotel pool.

A simple dark emerald green rectangular pool is reflecting the tropical sun in the dramatic landscape of central Bali. Built in 1996 when infinity pools were still a surprise this is Travel & Leisure magazines top 50 pools winner. The closeness to nature is tantalizing as the infinity edge of the pool seems to lap up against the jungle itself.

The Adelphi Hotel is a converted warehouse with a breathtaking roof top pool. The pool looms a little bit over the building and end in free space over Finders lane below. With glass bottom at the end of the pool swimmers feel the abyss of the building canyon below while pedestrians enjoy the visual splash of swimmers above them in the sky.

Shompole means “brown land’ and these accommodations are located in the middle of the desert between Kenya and Tanzania and provide for incredible views with a cool breeze. Guests not accustomed to the hot climate can find protection from the sun under tall straw roofs with a design inspired by Massai craftsmanship that also partially cover the outdoor curved pools from the searing sun.

You decide. You can swim curved laps around the centrally landscaped infinity pool, enjoy sitting on a submerged barroom stool sipping a Margarita delivered by the pool butler and/or enjoy your own private pool suite shielded away from view of other guests.

This building was not meant to be a hotel. Over a hundred years ago it was home to the newspaper “The Morning Post”. It is not easy to integrate a swimming pool into an existing building. The One Aldwych does a fine job adding an 18 meter pool in the basement with underwater music, serene large screen natural projections, extensive use of glass to provide lightness, and yellow walls to give it an almost sunny atmosphere. The old riveted steel beams reveal the true history of the building.

A magnificently luxurious private mansion, epitome of luxury, converted into the Hotel villa Honegg is a haven with fabulous views onto a breathtaking scenery across Lake Lucerne. The Villa Honegg is a unique 5-star superior establishment in the heart of Switzerland on mount Bürgenstock.

]]>Neon Hotel Signshttp://boulderinn.com/neon-hotel-signs/
Mon, 27 Jul 2015 17:19:46 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2382by Jim Harrington – Hotel memories, like neon lights, may flicker over time but do not fade away. Cosmic forces created neon gas to be ubiquitous throughout the universe, but oddly rare here on Earth. When captured in a tube and charged with electricity neon provides brilliant red color to... Read more »]]>by Jim Harrington – Hotel memories, like neon lights, may flicker over time but do not fade away. Cosmic forces created neon gas to be ubiquitous throughout the universe, but oddly rare here on Earth. When captured in a tube and charged with electricity neon provides brilliant red color to hotel signs and other displays. Brilliant at night, like the Northern Lights, the neon signs with their liquid fire also attract attention during the day. Mad Men harnessed the potential of this noble gas and changed the course of human culture, through the power of luminous advertising. New craftsman created individual neon tubes that were ‘blown by mouth, and shaped by hand’ that forever made us look at hotel signs, including the Las Vegas ‘Stardust’ and the Wildwood ‘StarLux’ in a new light.

In 1898 British scientists uncovered the element neon. Its name comes from the Greek word for new. In 1910 a French engineer perfected the neon lamp using an electrified tube filled with the new neon gas. The first neon sign was created in 1912 for a barber shop in Paris. Neon lights arrived in the USA in 1923 when a car dealership in Los Angeles purchased two neon signs in Paris. Neon tubes would multiply and spread to help create an age of light and color in urban America at a time when magazine advertising was still in black and white. A colorful golden age for advertising had arrived on the streets of the USA.

For better or worse, neon light will not be ignored. This is good news for business wanting to attract potential customers. Neon signs often complement colorful backdrops to form streetscape signage and functional works of art. High visibility made hotel neon signs popular again during the expansion of America’s roadside culture in the 1950s and 1960s. Many businesses use neon signs to help passers-by make purchase decisions. For instance, hotels use neon “vacancy” signs to lure weary travelers to awaiting rooms.

Liquid neon fire lights spread from a barber shop in Paris, to a car dealership in Los Angeles, and from there everywhere including Las Vegas, Times Square and Wildwood. Legend tells that in 1928 a western town seemed to be burning. A man in Rattlesnake Gulch over 10 miles away called the fire department in Missoula Montana. He reported a red glow over the town. The fireman had trouble calming him down. He asked the caller if the blaze was long and rectangular. He said it was, and the fireman assured him it was not red flames that was lighting up the night sky but the new neon sign for the Florence Hotel.

In the summer of 1929 the manager of the Sagamore Hotel in Rochester New York praised his new neon sign saying “Its dignity, attractiveness and its visibility have been commented upon favorably by our guests.” The manager of the Sheridan Plaza hotel in Chicago, Illinois stated “I now believe in signs!” Neon signs he believed in were ‘signs of prosperity and signs of progress’ that brought in substantially new business every day. Good omens for signs indeed!

Neon gas produces red neon light but there are many other ‘neon light’ colors. The general term ‘neon lights’ is used for all fluorescent light tubes including those filled with other gas mixtures used to produce other colors. At one time the ‘neon light’ fluorescent tubes were available in up to 140 different colors all with their own unique mixture of gas.

Uniquely designed each tube is ‘blown by mouth and shaped by hand’ to become an advertising instrument. To create a neon light first one had to find a work bench with a fireproof cover, running water, gas supply, blower fan and various burners. Then one had to fix a rubber hose on to the glass tube and know how and when to blow through the hose to keep the tube open and know how to shape letters, hearts, dragons, even flying pigs and more while filling the tube vacuum with a noble gas, then apply electrodes and seal the tube. The neon tube, a technology speaking of modernity to come, was not built in autonomous factories but was created by the hands of new artisans in down to earth workshops where glass blowers and sign writers produced these new signs using their breath, mouths and hands. The neon signs they created were often exceptionally original, and shined on with artisan creativity and craftsmanship.

Neon signs were once the primary form of storefront advertising in the United States from the 1920s to 1960s. During this period, these eye-catching and affordable signs were symbols of modernity, consumerism and the excitement of travel on the open road. As car travel increased, with mobile leisure society discovering the highways, the signs that beckoned travelers to stay the night also exemplified that same sort of exuberance of new car travel, with swooping arrows, fins, pointing sputniks and enough colored neon to light up the night for miles around.

By the 1930’s neon advertising techniques had spread like liquid fire throughout the world. By the 1950’s and 1960’s neon signs began its slow but unstoppable decline. “Mad Men, also known as ‘Madison Avenue Ad Men’ had moved on and replaced individual neon lights with mass produced backlit plastic structures that were much easier to use, more flexible and more durable than glass. However not everyone could afford these new advertising displays and neon began its noir-ish decline used by those less expensive diners, bars and hotels. Neon lights might flicker but they don’t fade away. In many ways the iconic neon hotel sign flourished as neon advertising overall was declining. In the 1950’s to 1970’s Las Vegas, Nevada and Wildwood, New Jersey created neon cityscapes. Las Vegas, Nevada developed the famous ‘Stardust’ hotel on the Strip and Wildwood, New Jersey reinvented the “StarLux” a new neon hotel on the Wildwood boardwalk.

Although late coming to the neon game Las Vegas would define neon for years to come. Las Vegas casinos went for spectacular innovations to attract gamblers. It sparked an enormous success of

Stardust Hotel – Las Vegas, NV

contemporary light art and brought about renewed interest in neon glowing letters and signs. Without its neon signs, Las Vegas would be virtually unrecognizable. From the electric blue martini glass complete with neon green olive above Fremont Street to the multicolored hot-air balloon of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel on the Strip, these neon signs add more than a dash of color to the city at night. It makes Vegas one of the brightest places on Earth according to NASA, with billions of light bulbs and more than 24,000km of neon tubing. Tom Wolfe wrote “Las Vegas is the only city in the world whose skyline is made neither of buildings, like New York, nor of trees, like Wilbraham, Massachusetts, but signs. But such signs! They tower. They revolve, they oscillate, and they soar in shapes before which the existing vocabulary of art history is helpless.”

The premiere sign maker in Las Vegas is the ‘Young Electric Sign Company’, or YESCO. They were founded in 1920. They were quick to latch on to the possibilities of neon lighting, creating the first neon signs in the west starting from 1927. After opening a branch in Las Vegas’s Apache Hotel in 1933, YESCO began reimagining Vegas through signs. The neon light experience we know today in Las Vegas really began in 1945 with the Boulder Club sign that was the first real ‘neon spectacular’ sign to hit the streets. Vegas being Vegas of course the Pioneer Club down the street wanted a bigger, brighter sign and then someone else wanted a bigger sign and it really snowballed from there. YESCO created a chunk of Vegas’s most iconic signs in the next 15 years including the Las Vegas Club, the Glitter Gulch, Vegas Vic, The Mint, the Silver Slipper, the Golden Nugget, the Stardust and the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign.

In Las Vegas, neon signs are such a part of the city’s identity that there’s an entire museum dedicated to the preservation of its most iconic ones. Visitors to the Neon Museum can see signs collected from hotels, businesses, and casinos that date back to the 1930s! The Neon Boneyard, a gallery or resting place for neon signs attached to the Las Vegas Neon Museum, is home to more than 200 signs including the Stardust.

Back in 1958, the new Stardust hotel-casinos neon sign was a blast of light that could be seen for 100km across the Nevada desert. The world’s largest electric sign – 66m long, 8m tall and with 2,200m of neon tubing – depicted giant letters in Atomic-style font, amid a whirring, orbiting solar system. Inspired by the Sputnik satellite and the atomic tests in the Nevada desert at the time, it was a riot of energy, fantasy and futurism that dominated the entire hotel front. The Stardust was really the first time that architecture, design and advertising all came together in one building. The sign was the building, and it was an advertisement for itself, which articulated this fantasy of the atomic age. It also created its own font which we know today as Atomic and it broke all the lettering design rules at the time. And when you walked into the building you could hear the whirring mechanisms of the sign. The Stardust sign changed everything people thought you could do with a neon sign. Hotels stay open until they close for good. After operating continuously for 48 years the Stardust closed and was eventually spectacularly imploded into dust and debris but the sign lives on in the Neon Boneyard.

Today only around 5 of the 400 staff at YESCO’s Vegas factory work in traditional neon sign-making. Most of the rest are working on digital displays with LED and fiber optic technologies that allow for more efficient signage even when shaped into familiar, neon-like forms. Some of their work today is starting to look like what was predicted in the movie Blade Runner. Still there is something about the original neon light colors that won’t allow them to fade away. Given YESCO’s history, neon will always be a part of they do, and what’s amazing is that a well-made neon light from 1930 will still shine on as bright today as it did then.

Starlux hotel in Wildwood NJ

In the late 1940’s a boom in hotel development hit undeveloped beach land in and around the town of Wildwood, New Jersey. By the 1950’s and 1960’s beach front rooming houses had come down and new mom and pop motels started to go up. These new motels, hotels designed for motorists, mirrored the rise of the great American automobile with architecture that spoke of movement and speed along America’s vast open highways. These new motels were meant to be seen while you were going fast.

While people traveled by car to a vacation resort they dreamed about space travel and spaceships of the future. Sputnik, the first man made satellite in space, was launched in 1957 and space imagery became the rave for new hotels here on earth. With signature jagged fins and more neon lights not just on the sign but all around railings and trim of the building and Wildwood, New Jersey was transformed into a terrestrial spaceport for a family getaway vacation not to be forgotten for generations to come. Wildwood was a “Jetson-esque” destination of imagination with a neon glow so bright you could see it from miles away to guide you in your imaginary spaceship to their celestial shore for check in.

Families do not want to go on vacation and stay at hotel named ‘Motel 9’ when they can go to a spaceport by the beach and stay at the ‘Satellite’ or ‘White Star Motel’. Having an exotic name was an important draw to attract guests. Having a great sign could be an even bigger draw. Sometimes a very small independent hotel with a large sign would win over a vacationing family. For these mom and pop motels their sign built their logo. Whereas today modern advertising has the company logos build the sign. In Wildwood neon light craftsman built the sign for the motel and then from the image of the sign the motel owners created the motel logo. This led to a great burst of creativity which would be identified as ‘Doo Wop’ style to describe this unique, space-age architectural neon design.

Around the turn of the millennium a lot of these mom and pop motel owners were getting ready to retire at the same time a condominium building blitz hit the Wildwood resort town. Mom and pop motels came down and vacation condominiums went up. This great tear down of mom and pop motels with their unique creativity of branding and signage could never be replaced. From 2000 to 2005 832 buildings were torn down in Wildwood. 100’s of neon signs were destroyed. In May 2006 the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Wildwood’s Doo Wop motels as number one on its most endangered list.

The mystique of neon motel signs was sometimes lost on owners too busy making a living. The emotional landmark so beautiful and unique to many outsiders is not completely visible through eyes blurred by a lifetime of hard work. When given an opportunity for a lucrative retirement through a buyout many took condominium developer offers. But some owners and their families took a path less traveled. With the heritage of hard work and an eye for the soulfulness of the emotional landmark created in Wildwood over time they preserved not through historic district mandates but through reinvention Wildwood’s unique character. The next generation of Wildwood entrepreneurs created a new or retro 1950’s or 1960’s experience. They renovated former hotels like the Wingate Motel into the ‘Starlux’ Hotel with something to please the modern traveler and yet maintain the look and feel of a vintage hotel without any of the drawbacks of a 60 year old property. And doing so they shrewdly maintained the memories families had built up going to Wildwood for generations. At the ‘StarLux’ one has the feeling of stepping through time and being enveloped in the beauty, simplicity, and imagination of the 1950’s only with the finest of present day amenities. Starlux is the crowning jewel of the new Doo Woop properties in Wildwood today, its cylindrical stairwell, splashy décor, ramped roof lounge and glittering knock it out of the ball park sign shows what is to come not just what has been lost. To get a feel for what was lost in Wildwood you will have to go to the Doo Wop sign garden at the Doo Wop museum. Rather than mothball the signs the Doo Wop preservation league is relighting the night sky in front of the museum with historic neon lights of bygone motels.

Flickering hotel neon lights will not fade away. Preservation leagues around the country are restoring old hotel neon signs as artistic cultural artifacts. Neon lights are bright on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada and on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey. Neon hotel lights are being restored even here in Colorado. Denver’s Colfax Avenue was historically known as the “Gateway to the Rockies”, is the longest Main Street in the US and had its share of Doo Wop neon hotel signs. And new hotel entrepreneurs are recreating retro hotel neon signs. Not content to just be a memory these new neon displays attract today’s guests with an opportunity to step back in time while keeping today’s wi-fi intact. Neon hotel lights, like hotel memories, shine on!

]]>Pearl Street Mall historyhttp://boulderinn.com/pearl-street-mall-history/
Wed, 01 Jul 2015 16:36:12 +0000http://boulderinn.com/?p=2361By Jim Harrington Boulder’s heart and soul lie in its parks with majestic Flatiron views and four blocks on a street called Pearl. From the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn you are only a little more than a mile away from both mountain parks and the downtown city park of... Read more »]]>By Jim Harrington

Boulder’s heart and soul lie in its parks with majestic Flatiron views and four blocks on a street called Pearl.

From the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn you are only a little more than a mile away from both mountain parks and the downtown city park of the Pearl Street Mall . Stroll along this popular four block pedestrian mall with a central historic courthouse and enjoy a great selection of restaurants, bookstores, boutiques and sidewalk cafes. Enjoy the seasonal art shows, craft fairs, musical presentations and street performers who entertain enthusiastic crowds with their antics. You can also take a walk back in time reading plaques and learning the history of Pearl Street and the unique success of its pedestrian mall.

Pearl Street was created in 1859. In camp about 200 men and 17 women knew that winter was coming. They could not continue mining nor farming until spring thawed the ground. Not wanting to be idle these founding settlers began to lay out and build the western town of Boulder, Colorado.

The settlers made the first street by putting a stick in the ground at what is now Broadway and Pearl Street and to make it straight they sighted the street to Valmont Butte out onto the eastern horizon and to Boulder Canyon and the red rocks to the west. No one knows why the town founders chose the name of Pearl Street. Was it to honor a wife? a mother? a daughter? a sister? or lover? no one is really sure. It remains a mystery in history for whom Pearl Street is named. We just have to let our imaginations flourish with thoughts of who she was. She may never have even come to Boulder but her name is forever a gem in the City.

In later years there would be efforts to change “Pearl Street” to be conventionally named as “Main Street” like in other towns. But the people of Boulder are different and they love their “Pearl Street”, whoever she was, and voted down changing to plain old “Main Street”. “Pearl Street” has a sparkle of imagination and a unique Boulder flair that inspires residents to celebrate and dream.

Pearl Street was not the only place in Boulder County to have sparkle and glitter. When silver and a little gold was discovered on the western edge of Boulder County (near the old town site of Caribou and other places) road builders carved out a one lane wagon road from Boulder’s Pearl Street to the town of Nederland and to particular mine operations. Starting in 1870 convoys of horse and mule drawn freight wagons jockeyed into position on Pearl Street to see who would go up first the narrow winding canyon. What sparkle and glitter was found up the canyons was also providing more glitter to the supply stores along Pearl Street. McClure, now the Peppercorn at 1235 Pearl St, was the largest dry goods store in town. Valentines Hardware Company provided miners with dynamite for years and was located near Pearl and Broadway where Lindsay’s Deli Hagan Daz Ice Cream at 1148 Pearl St is today.

Over time stagecoaches made way to trains, bikes and automobiles. Boulder glittered not only as a supply town to miners and farmers but but was also being called the Athens of the West for its cultural enrichment, university, Chautauqua events, spectacular views and healthy climate. In a summer parade on Pearl Street one float boasted. “You don’t need to follow the rainbow for that pot of gold, It is right here in Boulder County.” Indeed it was right here on Pearl Street.

Pearl Street had many saloons and very few gun fights in its early days but in 1907 prohibitionists won city elections and cleaned up the town and they were all shut down. No beer, wine or liquor was legally sold in Boulder City limits. That may be why the town did not grow for a number of years so people could easily get to the edge of town to find a bar. Colorado Prohibition began in 1916 and national prohibition in 1920. Bootlegging flourished until national prohibition was repealed in 1933. The city of Boulder then allowed the sale of 3.2 beer but maintained its ban on regular beer, wine and liquor until 1967. Walt and Hanks Tavern was one of the 3.2 beer bars it is now America’s first Old Chicago’s Restaurant at 1102 Pearl St and serves 100’s of beers from all around the world.

Over the historic Courthouse entrance on the Pearl Street Mall is an art deco design showing a miner and farmer. These two occupations remained at the forefront of the city’s economic engine up to the early 1940’s. Pearl Street was the place for many community parades to celebrate the 4th of July or the return Scott Carpenter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Carpenter in 1962 a Boulder native from his orbital space flights. Christmas lights were put on the courthouse and a lit star on Flagstaff Mountain and have remained holiday traditions today.

The first section of a Boulder suburban indoor mall called Crossroads was completed to the east of town in 1963 it would later be renamed to be today’s 29th Street Mall. In the same year Pearl Street was briefly closed from 11th St. to 14th St. to test a new idea of an outdoor mall to maintain downtown economic viability. During the initial test of an outdoor pedestrian mall temporary planter with small trees, flowers and shrubs were put on Pearl St. The test did not last but it did spark an idea whose day would come over ten years later.

The test of a new downtown Pearl Street led to a number of planning groups being formed. This civic involvement in the planning of Boulder would be an ongoing tradition that continues on today. Some groups proposed very elaborate plans including the redevelopment of the entire downtown with several outdoor malls, a new traffic loop around Broadway which would be closed for the creation of a lake and numerous spoked greenway walking trails. These most elaborate plans never materialized. But they were the basis upon which architect Carl Worthington designed the four block pedestrian mall concept which would become the Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall.

In June 1968 Boulder City planner’s goals were to provide a better living environment in town including an increase in foot traffic, bicycling and a redesign of street signs away from the attention grabbing billboards and neon lights of the time. In 1970 Colorado Governor John Love signed the “Public Mall Act” which allowed Colorado cities to close streets to construct pedestrian malls. A permanent Pearl Street Mall was now possible.

In 1974 Boulder City Council voted to establish the “Downtown Boulder Mall”. Later peoples love for a street called Pearl would change the official name of the mall in 1997 to the “Pearl Street Mall”. The section of Pearl Street between 11th and 15th street was closed to car traffic on June 12th 1976 when the last official car to travel on these streets was celebrated with a huge block party.

Some distractors termed the following days as the “Pearl Street Maul” once construction began to dig up the streets. Not everyone loves construction and some downtown merchants were also divided about cars only being allowed on the side streets even if more parking structures were to be built. Today some of those same businesses think if the “Pearl Street Mall” had not been built there would not now be a downtown Boulder at all.

Great effort was given to ensure the historic character of downtown was maintained. Old western character is preserved even as a new sophisticated metropolitan living develops. Pearl Street Mall is not a tourist façade but a true city downtown core where locals also work, shop, play, debate and eat. The “Pearl Street Maul” as distractors termed the construction period ended and the “Pearl Street Mall” opened in August 1977 and was designated as a new city park.

People started to walk on the streets again as they had in pre 1900 and use Pearl Street Mall as a modern park. So in Sept 1977 City Council banned dogs, bicycling, skateboarding and tossing Frisbees in response to increasing concerns that the mall which was intended for pedestrians was becoming more of an obstacle course than a place to take a pleasant stroll. A later survey in town, which by the way has over a 100 miles of open space trails, determined the four blocks of the Pearl Street Mall is the best place to walk in Boulder.

Exceptions were made for an extraterrestrial “Mork from the planet Ork” who was allowed to roller skate through the pedestrian mall. In October 1980 Robin Williams who portrayed Mork shot a scene on the Pearl Street Mall for the popular “Mork and Mindy” television show. The show was so popular many visitors would ask,” where does Mork live?” The exterior of the Victorian house shown in the sitcom comedy is just a couple blocks off Pearl St but all the interior shots were done in Hollywood. The New York Delicatessen at 1117 Pearl St, where Mork liked to eat, was also in the show and is now Hapa Sushi Grill and Sake Bar. We are told all their cuisine is from Earth but you might want to ask to be sure. Scenes from the movie “Catch and Release” , starring Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant were filmed on the Pearl Street Mall in July 2005. And in 2014 the feature film “Christmastime”, directed by Michael Landon Jr. and staring Ernie Hudson of “Ghostbusters” was shot on the Pearl Street Mall as well.

At first buskers were not allowed to perform on the mall but then it was realized they are a good way to draw people together for live entertainment. Busker shows have included Johnny Fox a sword swallowing entertainer, Bango the balloon Man making numerous animal creations out of his colorful supply of balloons, Air Jazz juggler Peter Davidson, comedy juggler Jimmy Crisco, Evan from Heaven, David the Zip Code man who can tell you where you live, Ibashi the unusually flexible contortionist fold his body into a small box and many more street performers.

At first restaurants were not allowed to put out tables on the mall for fear of obstructing foot traffic. Later it was realized people really liked to people watch on the mall and one of the best places to do so was at a table in front of your favorite restaurant or coffee shop. Now eating on a mall patio is some people’s favorite pastime.

One of the failings in the initial design for the Pearl Street Mall was planning for its success. As more and more people left their cars on the side streets and gathered on the Pearl Street Mall more toilets were needed but not planned for. This was an embarrassing oversight that was corrected but at a higher cost than if they had been planned for initially. Lessons learned for future pedestrian mall development. But overall the success of the Pearl Street Mall would surpass what were its failings

The Pearl Street Mall was part of a nationwide effort to revitalize America’s downtowns through what was called a “center city revival movement.” Over 200 pedestrian zones were created nationwide in every region of the country but only about 11% of them were successful. The Pearl Street Mall is very successful and that may be due to the unique character of Boulder. Which includes blending civic and commercial uses, being near outdoor Mountain Parks and Open Space, the Pearl Street Mall being a concentrated short distance of four blocks, creating a car free zone with good multimodal transit options with parking structures at the edges, the town having an active citizenry, good sunshine throughout the year, having a college in town and having a population around 100,000 people. It also strives to be pedestrian friendly. The traffic signal at Broadway and Pearl was the first in the U.S. to feature a visible countdown timer for pedestrians to cross the street safely. The Pearl Street Mall’s success makes it the core of city life in Boulder.

Notable landmarks on the early downtown Pearl Street Mall included;

Fred’s Steakhouse at 1308 Pearl, now Sforno Trattoria Romano , across from the courthouse. One of Fred’s best known customers was Walter Lawry a penniless World War One veteran. Mr. Lawry’s walk to Fred’s was so slow you were sure he was standing still but like a tortoise he kept moving but you could only notice it if you came back to see him in a different spot over time. Often he just ordered a bowl of water, ketchup and crackers to eat. Encouraged to order from the menu other customers would take a collection to pay his bill. The alley south of the Pearl Street Mall is named Lawry Lane in his honor.

The alley to the north of the Pearl Street Mall is named Tom’s Way after Tom Eldridge a former city council member and longtime owner of Tom’s Tavern at 1047 Pearl Street. And Tom no matter how busy he was with his other businesses was never too busy to bus the tables during lunch rush hour. Film critic Roger Ebert called the burgers at Tom’s Tavern the best in the world. Today the restaurant Salt Bistro tries to keep his legacy alive with the Tom’s Tavern special burger on their menu.

From 1916 until 1956 Chester Johnson, Boulder’s Popcorn Man, with a bright red steam powered popcorn wagon was a Boulder institution on Pearl Street and 13th. In his honor a new red popcorn wagon was located near his old location now on the Pearl Street Mall. Boulder’s popcorn legacy continues.

For many years Jamaican born Paul Hester oversaw the Pearl Street malls maintenance and gardens. His unique touch was honored by the Colorado Senate which officially recognized Hester for the extraordinary beauty of the flower plantings in downtown Boulder. The City of Boulder Parks Department continues with Mr. Hester’s Legacy by going to extraordinary lengths to keep the Pearl Street Mall a beautiful park. Staff plant thousands of flowers on the Pearl Street Mall every spring and summer, importing 15,000 tulip bulbs from Holland and planting more than 6,000 annuals for a varied mix throughout the season. There are 58 ground flower beds, seven raised beds, 98 hanging pots and 52 containers.

Between its flower beds the Pearl Street Mall is home to a lot of art as well. There are numerous galleries to enjoy and public sculptures including an elk, a bearded man blowing water from his mouth, a buffalo, a frog, a beaver, a rabbit, an eagle, a bear and a cougar amongst others. There is also a statue of a woman titled “Hearts on a Swing” , near Broadway and Pearl Street, very near where the original settlers in 1859 set out to build a town and staked out Boulder’s first street. Could she be Pearl? We will never know for sure but our imaginations whisper ‘yes’. This is Pearl. This is Pearl’s Pedestrian Street Mall at the center of Town in Boulder Colorado. We will never know if she made it to town in person to see her street but we invite you to come and stay awhile, at the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn and take a walk on the Pearl Street Mall, we think you will enjoy it!